





Class. 

Book, 
















BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS VOLUME. 

The Quick or the Dead ? 

The Witness of the Sun. 

121T10. Cloth, jfi.oo each. 

“ The wonderful books of this authoress 
have, perhaps, made a deeper impression on 
our American literature than any work of fic¬ 
tion since ‘ Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ ”—New York 
Herald. .... 

Herod and Mariamne. 

In No. 249, Lippincott's Magazine. 

Paper, 25 cents ; half cloth, 50 cents. 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COnPANY, 

PUBLISHERS, 

715 and 717 Market Street, Philadelphia. 


















"mPH 



















































































THE 


Quick or the £)ead? 


A STUDY. 


BY 

AMALIE RIVES. 


11 Wanting is-what ?”— Jocoseria. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
1893 . 





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44? gr 

Glux 

4 


Copyright, 1888, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 


486555' 

H. 4, ’35 








PREFACE. 


The critics have done me a great, though 
unconscious, honor in assuming that I in¬ 
tended Barbara Pomfret for a representation 
of myself, for in so doing they have attrib¬ 
uted to me an absolute honesty and lack of 
vanity (save in the matter of physical ap¬ 
pearance) such as few mortals were ever cred¬ 
ited with. 

Imagine any self-respecting human creature 
deliberately setting down the minutiae of her 
private woes and struggles, and recounting in 
downright English her absolutely selfish and 
hysterically morbid fluctuations between two 
vital questions. 

It is strange to me that a man or woman, 
however obtuse, should deem any one capable 
of “ unlocking her heart with a sonnet key” 
to so absolute and unflattering an extent. 

iii 



IV 


PREFACE. 


As for those who think that I intended 
Barbara to represent a noble character, I will 
say simply and honestly that such was not 
my intention. I tried to describe as truth¬ 
fully as I could a type of woman of whose 
existence I felt convinced,—a creature mor¬ 
bid, hysterical, sensitive, introspective; an 
egotist to her finger-ends, although an un¬ 
conscious one; a sophist and a self-deceiver. 
If the eyes of even one Barbara have been 
opened to the way in which she is treating or 
has treated her Jock, then my study, crude 
as it is in many respects, will not have been 
made in vain. I have had letters from more 
than one Barbara, and from many who have 
known Barbaras, having suffered at their 
hands. 

My view of human passion, when it is 
honest and lawful, is the same that Charles 
Kingsley takes in his preface to “ The Saint’s 
Tragedy,” and in the tragedy itself. 

I will acknowledge with gratitude criticism 
which enables me to correct errors, to refine 


PREFACE . 


v 


my style, to become simpler, more terse, more 
in everything what a writer should be; but for 
those who call me impure I have only one 
reply : “ Ye read by the light of your own 
spirit.” Frederick Robertson has said, “ All 
situations are pure to the pure; to the man 
that feels that ‘the king’s daughter is all 
glorious within/ no outward situation can 
seem inglorious or impure. 

. . We do not want a new world,—we 
want new hearts. 

“ Let the spirit of God purify society, and 
to the pure all things will be pure.” 

The Quick or the Dead ? with all its faults 
of crudeness and bad taste here and there, 
—the result of too rapid writing and publi¬ 
cation,—is, after all, merely an honest study 
of a sensitive and morbid woman who feels 
that she is being disloyal to her dead husband 
in loving a living man. When I think of the 
misconstruction which has followed its ap¬ 
pearance, I am reminded of a purported fact 
which was once mentioned to me. The state- 


VI 


PREFACE. 


ment may be utterly untrue, but the simile 
remains apposite. Some one told me that 
milk and rattlesnakes’ poison are identical 
in the quality and quantity of their ingre¬ 
dients, and that the only way in which scien¬ 
tists explain the harmlessness of the one and 
the virulence of the other is by supposing 
some subtle difference in the juxtaposition of 
the molecules in each fluid. Now, it seems 
to me that some critics, when they shake the 
milk of my human kindness about in their 
own minds, disturb its atoms and force them 
temporarily into a poisonous relativeness. 

It was her husband’s ego—his soul—that 
Barbara loved. If this had not been so, 
she would have married Dering without ques¬ 
tion, since physically he was almost the exact 
reproduction of his cousin. 

How blessed a thing it would be if people 
would only understand that while spades are 
spades, still one need not always picture them 
as standing in mud! They may be used 
more effectually than any other tool for im- 


PREFACE. 


vii 

proving the soil about the roots of the Tree 
of Life, so that it will bear more abundantly 
and better fruit. 

It seems to me that books well meant, 
strongly written, and from a clean heart 
resemble mirrors, wherein every one who 
reads sees his own reflection. The pure will 
see purity,—the foul-minded, foulness. 

AMALIE RIVES. 



The Quick or the Dead? 


I. 

There was a soughing rain asweep that 
night, with no wind to drive it, yet it ceased 
and fell, sighed and was hushed incessantly, 
as by some changing gale. Barbara was a 
good deal unnerved by the lanternless drive 
from the station. The shelving road, seamed 
with abrupt gullies, lay through murk fields 
and stony hollows, that she well remembered; 
in the glimpsing lightning she saw scurrying 
trees against the suave autumn sky, like etch¬ 
ings on bluish paper; the dry, white-brown 
grasses swirled about the horses’ feet in that 
windless rain; and after what thunderous 
fashion those horses pounded stableward! 
They hurled through narrow gate-ways like 
stones from a catapult, rushed past ragged 
trees whose boles seemed leaping to meet them, 
1 1 



2 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

spun over large stones as though they had 
been mere fallen leaves. 

The black driver urged his smoking team, 
as though dissatisfied with their prowess, by 
sharp, whistling inward breaths, and upward 
gestures of his bowed elbows. He was a gro¬ 
tesque figure against the pennons of lightning. 
Barbara had smiled in spite of her fear, be¬ 
coming suddenly grave as they just grazed the 
corner of a slanting, lialf-ruined wall, formed 
of rough stones and clay, the “ Brookfield 
Barn” of her childhood, and her fears were 
not calmed by recalling the fact that only 
twenty yards ahead stretched a long, ram¬ 
shackle bridge, formed of loose planks held 
in place by wild grape-vine branches and a 
stone placed here and there. This bridge 
dipped its lithe middle almost into the waters 
of a hurling, brown stream, known in the 
surrounding country as “ Machunk Creek.” 
There were various legends regarding the ori¬ 
gin of this name. The negroes said that a 
man had crossed it at one time, carrying a 
chunk of “ fat” light-wood ; when on the mid¬ 
dle of the one plank which then served for 
bridge, he had dropped his pine-knot, and 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 3 

screamed out desperately, “ Oil! my chunk !” 
Thence the title of the stream. Barbara, who 
had always unquestioningly believed this 
story, could almost fancy that she saw this 
swart, regretful figure poised now above the 
hurly of rain-swollen waters,—could almost 
hear his despairing cry. She thought of get¬ 
ting out of the trap and following his example 
by crossing on foot, when a dull, whirring 
rumble, followed by a certain rock-a-bye 
motion, told her that they were upon the 
bridge. She shut her eyes with an infallible 
womanly instinct, although it was then abso¬ 
lutely dark, caught a fold of her inner lip 
between her teeth, and pinched the back of 
her left hand firmly in the palm of her right. 
There was a jolt, a spattering scramble from 
the horses, another of those sharp, unique 
sounds from Unc’ Joshua the driver, and off 
they sped once more into the ever-increasing 
gloom. 

It was not until the next day that Barbara 
found there had been lanterns, with candles 
ready for lighting, on each side of her. She 
had been finally whirled in upon the gravel 
of the carriage-drive of Bosemary, and had 


4 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

dodged tlie familiar arms of the box-trees, that 
scraped and rattled against the sides of the 
flying carriage: then came orange blurs of 
light, between thick, parted curtains, a semi¬ 
circular glare over the hall door, and little 
glowing ladders to right and left of it. 

Her aunt Fridiswig had rushed to meet 
her, had embraced her, by leaving a moist 
splash upon her elastic, night-cool cheek, and 
some of a pepper-and-salt shawl-fringe caught 
in the button of her jacket. She had escaped 
finally, saying that she would like a cup of 
tea in her bedroom, and that her aunt could 
come and bid her good-night, but was on no 
account to sit up past her usual hour for 
retiring. 

She was leaning now in an old, chintz- 
covered chair in front of a chestnut-wood 
fire. How vividly that chair recalled other 
days! She smiled a little drearily as she 
ran her fingers into a little slit in the stuff, 
which she had cut there herself, three years 
ago, while whittling a peg for her easel. She 
had brought no maid with her, having looked 
forward with a certain pleasure to the minis¬ 
trations of the maid of her girlhood, a dark- 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 6 

brown creature, with a profile like that of 
Itameses II., and wearing countless slubs of 
black wool tied up with bits of white string. 
This person was moving about the room with 
a light, padding step like that of a cat through 
wet grass. She was holding up and admiring 
her mistress’s cast-off furs and under-wraps, 
in the candle-light behind her back, passing 
her hand up and down the rich sables with a 
voluptuous ecstasy of appreciation ; now tuck¬ 
ing them beneath her chin and regarding her 
reflection in the old-fashioned, gilt-framed 
toilet-glass, now burying her face in them 
with a shudderingly delighted movement of 
her shoulders. Barbara sat listless, her damp 
hair unwound about her shoulders, tapping 
the curled ends lightly against the palm of 
her hand as she dreamed, wide-eyed, in the 
uncertain firelight. The maid, Martha Ellen, 
or Bameses, as Barbara called her, came pres¬ 
ently and began to warm a pair of red-heeled 
bedroom slippers by holding them to the blaze, 
at the same time lifting one of her pretty, yel¬ 
low-lined hands, palm outward, to protect her 
face. 

The gesture went through Barbara like a 
1* 


6 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


knife. How Yal used to laugh at it, when 
Martha Ellen went through the same per¬ 
formance of warming his slippers ! She put 
up both hands to her breast with a movement 
of anguish. Tears clustered hot and stinging 
on her lashes, and great breaths that were 
deeper than sobs thrilled through her from 
head to foot. Ah, she had been a fool doubt¬ 
less to come here, for, in the natural course of 
things, she must expect such painful occur¬ 
rences twenty times a day ; and yet there was 
a sorrowful sweetness in it, too. She let drop 
her hands, and, relaxing her tense figure, sent 
a slow, miserable look around the room. It 
was spacious, airy, Southern. A delicate, 
dawn-like mixture of rose and gray charac¬ 
terized its furniture. The large, carved bed, 
of mahogany, had hangings of rose and white. 
There were white goat-skins here and there 
on the gray carpet, and some very good water- 
colors, by French artists, above the chimney- 
piece. The chairs and couches were many 
and capacious. The number of mirrors sug¬ 
gested a certain vanity on the part of its oc¬ 
cupant : there were eight in all, none of them 
small, and all framed heavily in old gilt. A 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


7 


mahogany writing-table near one of the win¬ 
dows had heavy brass handles, awink in the 
fitful light. Barbara rose suddenly, and, put¬ 
ting back her heavy hair, began to walk up 
and down the room on soft, slipperless feet. 

“ Wait, Miss Barb’ra, honey,” urged Bame- 
ses, approaching her mistress on her knees 
and holding out the now very-warm slippers. 
“ You’ll war out dem pretty stockin’s.” 

Barbara stopped and stared down at her 
absently, then turned gently away and re¬ 
began her long, noiseless stride. 

“ You can go,” she said. “ Never mind 
the slippers. I’ll call you presently.” 

As Baineses left the room, Barbara locked 
the door through which she had passed, and 
then, turning, with her hand still on the key, 
took another long, scrutinizing survey of the 
room. 

Presently she went to one of the windows 
and drew aside the curtain. The skirt of the 
sky was strewn from hem to hem with little, 
flittering, filmy clouds, through which a wet 
moon shone vaporous; the tulip-trees, nearly 
stripped of their golden, October leaves, thrust 
their empty seed-cups out and up, like so many 


8 TIIE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

elfin goblets, to be filled with weird mist-wine; 
the wind blew in puffs, like a thing breathing 
in its sleep, and the rain had ceased. Bar¬ 
bara’s hair made a mellow glow in the wan 
light, and the already scarlet liolly-berries 
blinked back at her from the frothy gloom 
of the shadow-waves. A horse neighed im¬ 
patiently just below, and was answered from 
a far meadow. She could see the light from 
her windows streaking the faded grass on the 
lawn. With a sigh she let the curtain drape 
itself once more in its accustomed folds, pausing 
to rest both hands on the mahogany writing- 
table, and again devouring the room with that 
slow, absorbing gaze. As her returning eyes 
fell upon the table on which she leaned, she 
gave a strange cry, and pressed backward 
among the window-curtains, still keeping a 
fixed, horrified look on the table. How 
bathos will intrude upon pathos! It is the 
flippant Tweedledum of a most serious Twee- 
dledee. The possible viper from which poor 
Barbara shrank was nothing more nor less 
than a half-smoked cigar, which lay in a 
neat little ash-tray among its ashes, just as 
the man who had been smoking it had placed it 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


there three years ago. Suddenly she fell on 
her knees beside the table, and, snatching up 
the bit of tobacco, kissed it again and again. 
She was a woman with an almost terrible 
sense of humor, and presently she began to 
laugh, not hysterically, but quietly, appre¬ 
ciatively. She saw how ridiculous a thing 
that act of hers would seem to an on-looker. 
And then again she kissed it, and, catching 
her face into her two hands, went into a 
shuddering passion of sobs, tearless, noiseless, 
and terrible. 

All this will not seem overstrained when 
one knows its origin. 

In this room, among these identical articles, 
just three years ago, Barbara Pomfret had 
passed the first three months of an absolutely 
joyous married life; two years ago her hus¬ 
band had died, and she had come back an 
utterly unhappy woman to the scene of her 
former happiness. Every chair, book, knick- 
knack, rug, in this room, was associated in 
some way with her husband. The very pic¬ 
tures, the toilet-glass, the ornaments on the 
mantel-shelf, all held for her some memory 
which stabbed her as she looked; and yet it 


10 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


was of her own will that she had returned. 
She did not wish to forget, and she could not 
better remember than in a place so fraught 
with memories. She had not, however, cal¬ 
culated the full poignancy of the grief that 
was about to claim her. As vanished scenes 
swept across her inner sight, there came with 
them words and looks and tones innumerable. 
His arms held her, his breath warmed her, 
his voice was in her ear, vibrating, actual. 
She leaped to her feet, stumbling over her 
heavy gown; her fascinated, dreading eyes 
sought the vague gloom behind her, as she 
hurried to the door. The room was full of 
his voice, of his sighing, of his laughter. She 
breathed gaspingly, and caught at the key to 
unlock the door. It was stiff* with long dis- 
usage, and refused to turn. There again ! his 
laughter, about her, above her, and his lips at 
her ear. She could hear the words, loving, 
reckless, impassioned words, not meet for a 
ghost to utter: “Barbara! Barbara! your 
curled lips are a cup, and your breath is 
wine. You make me drunk !—drunk !” 

She grasped the key with both hands, pant¬ 
ing, sobbing, her eyes strained with a mighty, 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? H 

overwhelming panic. Still the senseless bit 
of brass resisted. She caught up a fold of her 
gown and wound it about the handle. Now 
his very lips were on her: they drew her 
breath, her life. 

“ O God, help me! O God, let the door 
open ! let it open !” 

Miss Fridiswig, alone with her knitting, in 
the dining-room just below, heard a sudden 
noise as of falling, and burst out into the hall, 
to meet Bameses with her eyes goggling. 
They made a simultaneous rush up the stair¬ 
way, and nearly fell over Barbara, who was 
lying on her face, half in and half out of her 
room. 

Bameses, who was as strong as most men 
of her size, lifted the poor girl bodily, and 
laid her upon the bed. 

They did all the disagreeable, useless things 
that people generally do to a fainting woman, 
and by and by, when it was time for her to 
return to consciousness, she opened her dark 
eyes, and drew several short, difficult breaths. 

“ I know,—I know,—” she said. 

“ You know what ?” coaxed Miss Fridiswig. 

“I know,—I know,—” repeated Barbara, 


12 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 


—“I know—where I am. Must get—a— 
new lock—to-morrow. Rameses—sleep—in 
here—to-night. What’s o’clock ?” 

“Mos’ twelve,” said Raineses, who was 
holding Barbara’s bare feet in her hands. 
“ You go tuh bade, Miss Fridis. Miss Bar- 
b’ra, you go tuh bade too.” 

“ Yes, darling, you must,—for my sake,” 
urged Miss Fridiswig. 

“ Not yet; not yet,” said Barbara. 

She tried to sit up, and fell back among the 
big pillows. A sudden shivering shook her 
throughout. She made another effort, and 
got her arm about Raineses’ neck. 

“ Help me—” she panted, “ help me—off 
the bed—quick. That sofa there-” 

When they had made her comfortable on 
the sofa, she closed her eyes and lay so still 
that they thought she had fainted again; but 
as Rameses moved to fetch some of the nox¬ 
ious remedies, she pressed down a fair hand 
on the girl’s wool, signifying that she was to 
remain beside her. 

“You go tuh bade, Miss Fridis,” said 
Rameses. “ ’Tain’t no use two on us sittin’ 
up.” 



THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 13 

“ No, not a bit,” said Barbara. “ Please 
go, Aunt Fridis.” 

“ Ah, let me be of use! let me be of use!” 
wailed Miss Fridiswig, casting herself on her 
knees beside Bameses, and leaving another 
warm splash on Barbara’s inert hand. 

Barbara, who never willingly hurt the feel¬ 
ings even of a cabman, did not know what to 
do, until it suddenly occurred to her to faint 
again. When she came to herself from this 
simulated swoon, Bameses had packed Miss 
Fridiswig, willy-nilly, to her virgin slumbers, 
and was resuscitating the dead fire by breath¬ 
ing on it, after the Biblical method. 

Barbara lay watching her, stung again by 
an almost intolerable pang. How often had 
she lain on that very sofa and watched Val 
trying to imitate the negro method of kindling 
a fire, until his puffed-out cheeks made him 
into a very excellent likeness of a wind-god 
couch ant! 

When the wreathing, lilac flames began to 
whirr about the fresh logs, she called the girl 
to her. 

“ Are you very sleepy ?” she said, smiling, 
a beautiful smile that Martha Ellen remem- 
2 


14 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

bered. It was associated with countless gifts, 
and seemed to breathe of the summer, a sea¬ 
son endeared above all others to the sensitive 
little black. 

“ Lor’! Yuh looks jes’ like yuh use tuh !” 
she exclaimed, regardless of Barbara’s ques¬ 
tion. “ I thought yuh done give up smilin’ 
when I seed yuh fust tuh-niglit.” 

“ Did you ?” said Barbara. She smiled 
again, and yielded her hand graciously to the 
girl’s caresses, repeating her question. Mar¬ 
tha Ellen asserted that she didn’t feel sleep 
“ nowhar near ’bout her.” 

“ But it must be very late ?” Barbara said. 
“ Are all the other servants in bed ?” 

Martha Ellen thought so, and slipped a 
lithe arm about her mistress, who stood still 
for an instant, while the apparent seething of 
the articles about her subsided. She was tall, 
and her figure in its silverish dressing-gown 
of white silk gleaihed like a streak of moon¬ 
light in the rich dusk. I once saw a stem 
of white wild-flowers lean against a charred 
pine as she was now leaning against her dark- 
skinned waiting-woman. 

Presently she moved a step or two. The 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 15 

girl moved with her, bending beneath the 
bare white arm that rested heavily across her 
shoulders. As they paused again, she turned 
her face up, with a sideward, expectant move¬ 
ment. 

“ I w T as going to say,” Barbara began, “ that 
if you know where the little brass bed is,— 
the one I used to sleep in as a little girl,—I 
would help you to get it.” 

“Naw, you ain’t; you ain’ gwine he’p me 
git nuthin’,” said Martha Ellen, positively. 

Her mistress was as positive. “ It is en¬ 
tirely too heavy for you to lift alone,” she 
said. “ If you know where it is, I am coming 
with you to help you.” 

They went together down a narrow corridor 
that turned abruptly several times, Martha 
Ellen in front with a candle that died out to 
a blue splutter in the many draughts. 

Following this elfish light, Barbara found 
herself at last in the nursery of her childhood. 
She looked upward and remembered the very 
cracks in the plaster ceiling: there was the 
identical one that she had thought resembled 
the profile of George Washington on the 
postage-stamps. Underneath it stood the 


16 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

brass cot. It was somewhat tarnished, and 
the bows of pale-blue ribbon that enlivened 
its head-piece were decidedly draggled. She 
untied them mechanically and rolled them 
around her fingers, while Martha Ellen took 
off the unsheeted mattresses. How long it 
was since she had slept in that gay little 
bed! There is nothing that makes us seem so 
unreal, so unfamiliar to ourselves, as some 
pleasant child-possession seen unexpectedly in 
unhappy womanhood. 

She kneeled long beside it that night, with 
palms pressed hard against her eyes, forgetting 
to pray, in a great, struggling effort to imagine 
herself once more a child, pleading for her 
pony’s tail to “grow as long as before the 
calf chewed it,” for “ Mammy to be white in 
heaven,” for “ Satan to be forgiven after a 
long, long, long time,” for herself to be made 
a “ good little girl and not so cross with 
Agnes.” 

At first she was not conscious of any es¬ 
pecial emotion, as she bent against the cold 
linen of the turned-back bedclothes ; she had 
no particular sensation either of happiness or 
unhappiness; but presently vast waves of 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADf 17 

passionate regret, and longing, and rebellion, 
surged over lier, each one, as it swelled and 
formed, more vast and annihilating than the 
other. The undertow seemed dragging her 
down, down. God’s imagined face took on 
a horrible grinning. The ministering angels 
seemed deformed creatures who writhed, and 
twisted, and uttered wanton gigglings as they 
circled about the Throne after the fashion of 
the witches in “ Macbeth” about the caldron. 
Nothing seemed good; nothing seemed kind. 
She could not even think of her husband as 
haying existed. He was a mere mass of re¬ 
pulsive formlessness in a slimy wedge of earth; 
perhaps he was not even that. She imagined 
his ghastly skeleton tricked out in all the 
mockery of fashionable attire. What de¬ 
lightful, smart, of-the-world-worldly coats he 
had worn ! Why, if he were a skeleton now, 
one could see his tailor’s name in gilt letters 
through his spinal column ! Ha! ha ! ha ! 
Ha! ha! ha ! She had laughed silently at 
first, then in a choking whisper, then in a 
ringing peal of sound that clashed through 
the silent house, chilling the blood in Martha 
Ellen’s rigid, black body. 


18 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

It did not occur to her to go to her mis¬ 
tress. She sat up on the pallet where she was 
sleeping for the night, folded herself in her 
own embrace, and muttered between her clack¬ 
ing teeth,— 

“ Miss Barb’ra done gone mad! she done 
gone mad ! I dunno what tuli do! Gord 
knows I dunno what tuh do !” Then all as 
suddenly the laughter ceased. 

There seemed to Barbara to be some glow¬ 
ing, resplendent presence about her, lifting up 
her heart as it were with both hands. She 
took down her palms from her strained eyes, 
and stared into the almost absolute gloom. 
She even reached out her arms into it. The 
darkness seemed to cling about her. Little, 
every-day noises distracted her attention,— 
the snap of the dying fire as it settled among 
its ashes, the lull and sough of an awakening 
wind through the branches of the tulip-trees, 
the noise that a mouse made dragging some 
little thing along the floor. She rose stiffly to 
her feet, and cowered shivering down among 
the icy sheets. Again she held out her arms. 
The pressure of a warm, curly head against 
her breast was with her as an actuality. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


19 


“ Oli, Val,” she whispered,—“ oh, Yal! Oh, 
darling,—mine !—mine!—mine! Touch me, 
come to me, here in the darkness,—here where 
you used to love me. I will not be afraid,— 
no, not the least, not the least. Oh ! God— 
God! he does not hear me ! he cannot hear 
me! he does not care any more.” 

She flung herself half out of her childhood’s 
bed upon the large one of carved mahogany 
near which it stood, sobbing, shuddering, kiss¬ 
ing wildly the silken coverlet and pillows that 
rose softly through the thick firelight, so 
finally slept, worn out, desolate, chilled to the 
very core of soul and body. 

II. 

Rosemary was one of those old Virginia 
houses which have not been desecrated with 
modern furniture, as gray hair with hair-dye. 
Its rooms were gloomy in contour and atmos¬ 
phere, but cheered by bright hangings and 
flowers, like an old face with smiles. The 
house of deep-red brick showed in sanguine 
streaks through tangled vines, something after 
the fashion in which a Nereid’s face might 
blush behind her veil of verdant hair. There 


20 the quick or the dead? 

were many old portraits in the large hall, as 
darkly ruddy in color as the outer walls of 
the mansion which they adorned. An old 
spinet stood in the music-room, from which 
instrument Miss Fridiswig used to coax 
forth ghastly jinkings (this spinet could not 
utter anything so liquid as a jingle) on Sun¬ 
day afternoons. 

It was a most lovely old place to die in, 
but not, assuredly, one in which to live. 
There was a suggestion of loneliness even 
about its vegetable life which seemed de¬ 
pressing. Its trees, with the exception of 
the tulip-poplars and acacias, were all mate¬ 
less, not two of any kind. Its flowers did 
not grow socially in beds, but here and there 
throughout the tangled grass. The very 
stalks of corn in the kitchen-garden leaned 
away from each other. There was one dog, 
one cat, one horse, one vehicle which Miss 
Fridiswig called a carry-all, and one aged 
'black to drive it. Barbara preferred walk¬ 
ing, to this means of locomotion, and was 
sometimes out from early morning until the 
woods were full of lean shadows, that seemed 
as hungry as herself. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 21 

With wliat an appetite she used to return 
to Rosemary! She sometimes drank three 
cups of tea, and ate two partridges, together 
with numberless biscuits, for supper. Miss 
Fridiswig, after having asserted on several 
occasions that she would “ruin her stum- 
mick,” considered an unpleasant duty to have 
been performed, and refrained from further 
remark. Miss Fridiswig was amiable and 
unobtrusive, and, when she did not perform 
on the spinet, Barbara liked to think that she 
was in the house. 

October in Eden could not have been 
more perfect than October in Virginia,—in¬ 
deed, far less so, as the ever-verdant leaves 
in that garden could never have fallen 
brownly to the ground and so rustled al¬ 
most to the very knees of a person walking 
through them. 

During these autumnal rambles, Barbara 
seemed to leave her wedded self at Rosemary, 
and to pursue her maiden self with all the 
sweet if sad persistency of a Dryad seeking 
her forsaken tree. 

It was as if Happiness lurked somewhere in 
the golden-glad depths of those many-stemmed 


22 the quick or the dead? 

woods, waiting only for the clasp upon her 
kissing wings. 

A sadden resolve one day took possession 
of Barbara. It occurred to her while putting 
on her gloomy bonnet of heaviest crape. She 
tossed it from her with a sudden resolve, and 
unwound the severe plaits of her copper-brown 
hair, allowing them to curl richly into a float¬ 
ing background for the clear but vivid pallor 
of her face. Ten years appeared to have 
fallen from her with that burnished coronal. 
The airy grace of girlhood seemed entangled 
in her airy tresses. She then as hastily put 
off her sombre gown, and, going to an old 
press, felt along its shelves until she had 
brought to light several articles, in which she 
began to dress herself. Her toilet accom¬ 
plished, she looked like a girl of sixteen who 
had gotten herself up in as near emulation 
of some favorite brother as possible. This 
boyish costume consisted of a dark-blue flan¬ 
nel shirt, a short, clay-stained corduroy skirt, 
a leather belt, a pair of chamois-skin shooting- 
gaiters, and a pair of stout laced boots. 

She gave one fleeting glance at herself in 
the toilet-glass, and then, pulling on a dark- 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 23 

blue Tam O’Shanter as sbe ran, fled from the 
room, down-stairs, out of door, far into the 
wind-stirred forest. 

She sank at last upon a fallen tree, and 
glanced, panting gayly, at the beauty sur¬ 
rounding her. A flying squirrel whirred 
past her head, and, alighting on a bole just 
beyond her, began its light, scratching ascent. 
A ground-swell of wind, as it were, just lifted 
the overlapping leaves about her feet; while 
she could hear the occasional patter of an 
acorn in the gold-barred silence to right and 
left, like the intermittent tick of some genial 
old clock, that disliked to tell more constantly 
the passing of such glorious hours. 

There was a soft blue haze lying close to 
the forest-floor, through which its boles and 
undergrowth darted blackly upward, like fig¬ 
ures from some tremendous witch-smoke, and 
a trail of Virginia creeper spurting redly 
across the foreground suggested the blood- 
spurt from the victim in the unholy sacrifice. 

Barbara rested movelessly, absorbing the 
beauty about her through the very pores of 
her soul. The roots of the fallen tree against 
which she leaned, reaching crookedly towards 


24 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


a bough of golden maple leaves overhead, re¬ 
minded her of the fingers of a miser scooped 
to clutch his gold. She laughed with a sud¬ 
den whim. 

“You shall have it!” she said, springing 
out and grasping the bough, which she shook 
back and forth with all her strong young 
might. She was an enchanting Danae under 
the shower of gold leaves, the supple lines of 
her strained figure melting into the vaporous 
blue-gray of the wood beyond, her eyes laugh¬ 
ing above the unusual carmine in her cheeks. 

It seemed a pity that the only witness To 
this ravishing scene should be a little darky, 
with an embarrassing paucity of breeches, 
and a ragged coat which trained upon the 
ground behind. 

He paused, grasping a young sapling which 
he was dragging after him, and gazed up at 
Barbara, who, pausing also, gazed down at 
him. He was short and wizened, and had 
narrow, blue-black feet, upon which he stood 
gingerly, the yellow-lined great toes curled 
heavenward. His oily eyes were small, his 
countenance a dense bitumen hue, his inner 
lips, hanging outward with astonishment, of a 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 25 

pale, moist pink, like that of a toadstool rained 
upon. He was impish and uncouth even 
for a little nigger, and looked like a crayon 
sketch after a painting of Robin Goodfellow. 

“ How-d’e-do ?” said Barbara. 

He replied with the staccato precision of a 
telegraph machine,— 

“ Fse fus’-rate. How’s yo’se’f ?” 

“ Thanks, I am in excellent health also,” 
replied Barbara. “ Will you tell me where 
you are going ?” 

“ Chissnuts,” said the imp, laconically. 

“ Chestnuts !” echoed Barbara. She loosed 
the maple bough, which swung in stately 
nudity to its accustomed place, and came for¬ 
ward dusting lightly together her gloved 
palms. The knotty miser-roots were now 
full of the plenteous gold, and she looked 
back at them over her shoulder and smiled, 
before addressing the boy, to whom presently 
she said, in a pleasant voice,— 

“Will you let me go with you, Robin 
Goodfellow ?” 

“ ’Tain’t my name,” he answered, with the 
same brevity which had heretofore distin¬ 
guished his remarks. 


3 


26 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ No, but it is my name for you,” said Bar¬ 
bara, gravely. “What have you to say to 
that ?” 

He lowered one of bis taut big toes, and 
burrowed with it in the soft loam. 

“ Nothin’,” he finally announced. 

“ Shall I come with you ?” 

“ Ef yuh wants.” 

“ I do want. I want some chestnuts.” 

At this the imp grinned cunningly. 
“ Yuh’ll have tuh pay fuh ’em, den,” said he. 

“ I’ll do that now,” returned Barbara, tak¬ 
ing a quarter from a netted purse, which she 
always carried for this very purpose. 

His little eyes seemed to dart towards it 
like those of a crab, and he drew a swift 
tongue over both podgy lips, with the air of 
a gourmet regarding a well-cooked ortolan, 
while the cunning look on his face increased 
in proportion as the grin vanished. 

“You gimme dat fus’, ’n’ den I’ll thrash 
de tree fuh yuh,” he suggested. 

“ You thrash the tree for me first, and then 
I’ll give you this,” replied Barbara, firmly. 

“All ri’,” he said, a certain glaze which 
avarice had spread like a coat of varnish 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 27 

over his black skin vanishing, to leave it as 
dully grimy as before. 

“ By the way, what is your name ?” Bar¬ 
bara asked, as she walked beside him on their 
way to the cliestnut-tree. 

“ Mos’ anythin’.” 

“ Well, what is it as a rule ?” 

“ Mh ?” said the child. 

“ What does your mother call you ?” 

“ ‘ Honey’ when she’s please’, ’n’ ‘ you 
Satan’ when she ain’.” 

“ Hadn’t you rather be called Bobin Good- 
fellow than Satan ?” 

“ I don’ keer.” 

“ If I give you this quarter and another for 
the chestnuts, will you answer when I call 
you Bobin Goodfellow ?” 

“ Mh—mh.” 

She put the quarter in his upreached palm, 
and he transferred it thence to one of his 
cheeks, the monkey-like pouch where a young 
negro carries most of his valuables. It made 
an eerie clinking against his teeth as he 
talked; and when she finally bade him good- 
by and gave him the other quarter, he tucked 
it away in the opposite cheek. 


28 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


Barbara was so pleased with this unique 
and non-committal young imp that she took 
him shortly into her service. He carried her 
easel and color-box when she sketched, and 
occupied the back seat of her Canadian fish¬ 
ing-wagon when she drove. During her day¬ 
long rambles he was nearly always to be seen 
trotting at her heels, and he slept on a bear¬ 
skin rug just outside of her door. She had 
at first attempted to dress him picturesquely, 
but the result was not encouraging. When 
Beauregard Walsingham (for such Barbara 
discovered to be his real name) first beheld 
himself in his mistress’s mirror, thus attired, 
he gave vent to a choked howl of dismay and 
anger, and fled to the linen-closet. From 
thence he was unearthed, not too gently, by 
Bameses, who had no liking for him, and 
usually spoke of him as “ that limb,” having 
declared him to be “ ez ugly ez home-made 
sin V ez black as the hinges uv midnight.” 

On being asked the cause of his excite¬ 
ment, Beauregard replied that he “ wa’n’t no 
circus clown, en folks done think he cunjud 
(conjured) if he war dem dar things.” 

Barbara attempted to reason with him, but 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 29 

it was useless; and slie at last adopted a stern 
and superior pose, and had the butler place 
him bodily on the back seat of the fishing- 
wagon. He sat there, it is true, but the fixed 
war-light in his greasy eyes was ominous. 

His duty on these occasions was to open 
the many gates which distinguish Albemarle 
neighborhoods. The first one on this after¬ 
noon gave almost directly upon the brawlings 
of Machunk Creek, and after Barbara had 
driven through, and was waiting for him to 
resume his place behind her, he turned 
abruptly, and, with respectful but dogged 
determination, waded out into the middle of 
the stream, cast himself upon his scarlet- 
sashed little stomach, and rolled. A muddy 
unity of tone was the result. Barbara looked 
ahead as if nothing had happened, until he 
began to climb into the cart; she then in¬ 
formed him that he was to follow on foot the 
rest of the way, and she made the occasion 
live forever in his memory by driving eight 
miles. It probably kept him from taking 
cold, but it also subdued his dauntless spirit, 
because, although he made no signs of giving 
in, when Rameses girded his loins next day 


30 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD f 


with another as brilliant sash, he wore it 
meekly until Barbara herself removed it be¬ 
fore he went to bed. 

Having conquered, she, woman-like, be¬ 
stowed upon him that for which he had 
fought,—namely, an ordinary costume, com¬ 
posed of dark-brown cloth and silver buttons. 
So closely did this attire fit, and so perfectly 
did it match young Walsingham’s complex¬ 
ion, that at a little distance he looked like a 
bronze nudity picked out with silver. 

He was a strange, subtle little creature, of 
few words and secretive habits. He had a 
melancholy instrument upon which he used 
to play “Home, Sweet Home.” Raineses 
called it a “mouth-harp,” and it used to set 
all the dogs howling,—for Barbara had bought 
two greyhound pups, which she was training. 

Between the spinet and the mouth-harp, 
Barbara was sometimes very miserable; but 
she could not find it in her heart to separate 
Beauregard from the one object of his affec¬ 
tion, which actually slept in his dusky bosom 
every night. 

Her girlhood’s costume, once adopted, was 
worn as a constancy, the walks which she 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 31 

took being of too wild and secluded a nature 
to subject her to remark from any of the 
neighbors. She resembled the heroine of a 
witch-tale, figuring all the week as a bright- 
eyed, wild-haired brownie, and becoming on 
the Sabbath a sad, unspeaking woman, with 
demure dark lids over eyes yet more demure 
and dark. 

During those vagrant autumn days she 
became mistress of a rare art, that of con¬ 
trolling her thoughts. She found that by a 
tremendous effort she could whistle them to 
fist and keep them hooded there, so that, al¬ 
though they fretted and shook their bells, they 
did not soar away into the open and bring 
down unsavory winged things which she 
would rather remained a-wing. Those first, 
horrible imaginings haunted her no more. 
Her husband was with her now as the glad¬ 
eyed lover of her young wifehood. She re¬ 
membered his rollicking laughter, recalled 
the movements of his eyes, walked often with 
the very warm ness of his arm about her body. 
She would not allow herself to think of the 
coming snow, and her life seemed a support¬ 
able waiting, a not altogether sad wandering 


32 the quick or the dead ? 

after something which at length she would 
discover. 

She returned one evening far into the 
orange-belted radiance of the heavy twi¬ 
light. There were boughs of glowing leaves 
about her shoulders, which framed her face 
as though in reality she were a Dryad, look¬ 
ing through the screen of her guarding foliage, 
and she held the greyhounds in a light leash, 
singing, as she walked, parts of a song that 
her husband had especially liked : 

“Bravo! Bravo! Punchinello! 

Bravo, Pun-chi-ne-ell-o!” 

She had not a strong voice, but it was clear 
and carried well, and was pleasant to drowsy 
ears,—a twilight and firelight voice,—one 
in which to sing elf-songs, and ghostly ditties, 
or some such lay as this story of Punchinello. 

As she came up the long, narrow lawn, 
overbent by tall acacias, she could see the 
wavering glare of a large fire in the drawing¬ 
room. How often she and Valentine had 
hailed that leaping, twisting light on their 
home-coming after just such walks! She 
ceased suddenly to sing, and dropped on her 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 33 

knees in the rank grass, while the greyhounds 
leaped awkwardly upon her, haying no in¬ 
stinct to tell them when women kneel for 
prayer and when for play. She had been 
thrilled with a possessing sense of his near¬ 
ness : he was about her, close against her with 
the other impalpable essences of this still, 
gold-gray evening. The light in the draw¬ 
ing-room died down, almost went out, then 
leaped higher than ever: some one had 
thrown on more wood. Kneeling there on the 
windy lawn had chilled and dispirited her. 
She rose to her feet, still grasping the gay 
leaf-masses, and entered the house. 

With her hand on the drawing-room door, 
she paused. It seemed as though an actual 
force was urging her away; and yet there 
was no one there. She turned and looked 
first over one shoulder, then over the other, 
with a bird-swift gesture. No one. The pup- 
j)ies left outside were whining and scratching 
for admittance. She hesitated, thinking for a 
moment that she would let them in, but some 
strange feeling withheld her. Then tossing 
wide the door with an impetuous movement, 
she went rushingly into the very middle of 


34 THE quick or the dead? 

the room, where she regretted her impulsive¬ 
ness, for she saw that a man was standing 
before the fire. He was bending slightly 
towards the blaze and scooping his hands to 
it,—a very ordinary gesture, but one that hurt 
her. A man may be individual even in his 
method of warming his hands, and this was 
her husband’s gesture. 

During the moment in which this knowl¬ 
edge pierced her heart, the man saw her, and 
came forward. She began to think that she 
was in a dream,—the figure, the step, the pose, 
were so identically her husband’s; but the 
greatest shock of all was when he spoke. 

“ You must be Barbara,” was what he 
said, and the voice was Yal’s voice. The 
room swung about, and the fire leaped forward 
to meet her. She put out her hand, letting 
fall the red leaves which she still held. The 
man who had spoken with her husband’s 
voice now supported her to a chair with the 
very trick of arm that he had been wont to 
use. She shut her eyes, fearing absolutely to 
look up, and put out both hands, as though to 
push him from her, while he kneeled to place 
a footstool under her feet, and then rose and 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


35 


slipped a cushion between her head and the 
stiff chair-back. During these different move¬ 
ments he uttered various disjointed sentences: 
“ So sorry ! Ought to have waited. Ought 
to have rung for lights. Firelight confused 
you. By the way, I’m Jock,—Yal’s cousin, 
you know. He told me so much—I—I mean 
I’ve heard so much about you,—feel as if I 
knew you, you know. Are you all right now ? 
Do look at me: it’ll steady you. There’s— 
there’s a strong likeness.” 

“ I had rather rest a little,—thank you so 
much,” said Barbara. The firelight through 
her hot lids made them seem like live coals 
resting upon her eyes, while her mind and 
body seemed to sweep in circles like a bird at 
poise. He had unconsciously named the very 
thing that she dreaded. Were this “ strong 
likeness” of feature as marked as every other, 
she thought that endurance would be impos¬ 
sible. She ventured to lift her eyes to the 
hand resting on her chair-arm : it might have 
been thrust from the grave. She gave a sob¬ 
bing cry and started to her feet. Dering rose 
also, startled and alarmed. “ You are ill,” 
he said. “ Shall I call your maid ?” 


36 THE quick or the dead? 

“I will call her,” said Barbara; “I will 
call her.” She flew past him to the door, 
passed through it, and was gone. 

Dering’s sensations were not enviable. He 
walked to the fire and began to warm his 
hands again. 

“I flatter myself that I know something 
about men,” he said, rather grumpily, “ but 
I’m hanged if I know anything about women.” 
He then nestled down with a boyish move¬ 
ment of entire content into the chair that 
Barbara had abandoned, and waited for fur¬ 
ther developments. 

Nothing occurred until half an hour later, 
when Barbara herself re-entered the room. 
He scarcely knew her at first, in her long 
black crape gown, with her diadem of lus¬ 
trous braids replaced, and he wondered, as he 
took the hand which she now held out, if she 
were ever going to lift her lids. 

“ She’s handsome,” he said to himself, “ but 
she’s too blonde and too big. Her waist’s too 
big—no, it’s her shoulders—no, she’s all too 
big. Her hair’s too red—no, there’s too much 
of it—no, it’s the way she wears it.” 

Barbara, who was very apt at such things, 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


37 


did not rightly fathom his thoughts on this 
occasion. She believed that he was ponder¬ 
ing on her pallor and red lids, and wondering 
if she had been enough in love with his cousin 
to justify such a quantity of crape. If ac¬ 
knowledged beauties could know the thoughts 
of most men when first introduced to them, 
there would not be so much vanity in the 
world. 

Barbara, who was an acknowledged beauty, 
did not strike any responsive chord in Der¬ 
ing until she turned him her profile in set¬ 
tling the folds of her dress. It was vigorous, 
classic, enthralling, and he admitted as much 
to himself while regarding it. 

“ Good brow,” he meditated; “ good nose; 
good line of lips,—well balanced, upper and 
lower equal; good chin, splendid chin, mas¬ 
sive, but not heavy. Lots of will-power,— 
no end to it.” 

“ Won’t you sit down ?” said Barbara. She 
did not look at him, and held a hand-screen 
between the flames and her face, so that he 
could no longer see it. 

“ Thanks,” said Dering, resuming his nest¬ 
ling position. 


4 


38 THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 

Suddenly Barbara lauglied. 

“ You remind me of a dog turning around 
before he lies down,” she said, in explanation. 

“ Lots of people have said that,” he replied, 
easily, laughing also. 

Barbara winced a little, and the light died 
from her eyes. She had heard a great deal 
of Jock Dering, and was prepared to like 
him most heartily, but if he continued to 
speak to her in her husband’s very voice, 
how was she to bear it ? They talked a little 
in a desultory way, and presently a half- 
burned log fell crashing down upon the 
hearth. As Dering stooped to replace it, 
Barbara involuntarily lifted her eyes to his 
face. He was startled by the soft huddling 
against him of her unconscious body. 

III. 

The extraordinary likeness which John 
Dering bore to his dead cousin Valentine 
Pomfret was one of those rare but not ficti¬ 
tious freaks in which heredity sometimes in¬ 
dulges. Twin brothers are often less alike 
than had been those two young men, and the 
fact that Dering was Pomfret’s junior by a few 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


39 


years was overcome by the further fact that 
for a few years poor Pom fret had been dead; 
Barbara therefore beheld in the Dering of to¬ 
day the exact reproduction of her husband 
of three years ago. Voice, gesture, figure, 
and face were all identical. There was the 
same curling brown hair above a square, 
strongly-modelled forehead; eyes the color 
of autumn pools in sunlight; the determined 
yet delicate jut of the nose; the pleasing un¬ 
evenness in the crowded white teeth, and the 
fine jaw which had that curve from ear to tip 
like the prow of a cutter. An unusual face, 
one in which every new acquaintance would 
not be apt to recall hints of some friend or 
relative. 

In manner he was delightful,—abrupt, 
frank, original, and a trifle egotistical: in a 
word, Valentine Pomfret over again. 

Barbara, who had not of course distin¬ 
guished these further similarities between the 
quick and the dead, was sufficiently overcome 
by the physical likeness. Its memory swept 
over her, now with a species of horror, now 
with a sort of joy. She was in turns flooded 
with rapture at having seen again her hus- 


40 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


band’s face, and torn with an impotent rage 
that any human creature should dare to move 
and have his being in so exact a similitude of 
that dear body. She experienced the feeling, 
intensified a hundred times, which rends a 
mother in seeing some careless friend or sister 
flaunting the garments of her dead child. 
Now she yearned for another sight of the 
dear face; now she flung the idea from her 
as utterly unnatural and abhorrent. She 
snatched VaPs miniature, warm with her 
bosom, and pressed it to her lips, then 
opened the thin gold case, and hungrily fed 
upon its every tint and contour. When she 
finally dropped it back beneath her gown, 
the case, having grown cold in the air, star¬ 
tled her flesh, as a certain fact had startled 
her mind while gazing upon the portrait 
within. His pictured face was not so much 
like him as was the face of his cousin, John 
Dering! She was in her bedroom, and alone, 
so did not forbear to cry out, and moan, and 
talk to herself in panting fragments, as she 
swept about the room, taking first a vibrating 
stride or two, then leaning against some piece 
of furniture and pressing away the hair from 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 41 

lier face with both hands; then crouching and 
trembling with hidden eyes, or rushing from 
wall to wall with all the restrained, breathless 
eagerness of some prisoned, pantherish crea¬ 
ture whose efforts for freedom had long been 
vain. 

As she flung herself exhausted into an 
arm-chair near the fire, the wide sleeve of 
her dressing-gown fell back, revealing the 
smooth flesh of her arm, stained violet here 
and there by the rich veins. 

She bent, uttering a sharp, inarticulate cry, 
and caressed it with slow movements of her 
cheek. She remembered how he had loved 
to kiss her delicate, inner arm when dressed 
in this very gown, and even as she smiled for 
the dear memory there came upon her, with 
a surge of rebellion and revolt, the knowledge 
that he was now above such fleshly pleasures; 
that he would not now care for any of the 
sweet, warm, trivial things for which he had 
once cared so passionately. She leaped up, 
lifting her hands high above her head and 
pressing them agonizedly together. She tried 
to realize that he was a spirit, a purified es¬ 
sence, a soul merely; and as the idea took 


42 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

shape within her, she shrank from and loathed 
it, then fell into bitter human weeping, some¬ 
times pleading for death, sometimes asking 
that God would work only His will with her. 

Dering, who was happily ignorant of the 
effect which his appearance had produced, 
called again the next afternoon, to inquire 
for her health, but was told that she had 
gone to walk. He remained for some time, 
hoping that she would return, but took his 
leave after an hour, wondering somewhat that 
a woman who fainted so easily should trust 
herself alone on such long walks. The next 
time he saw her was in the heart of an oak- 
plantation called the “ Tarleton Woods.” He 
had plunged recklessly into its unknown vis¬ 
tas after a covey of partridges, and had fan¬ 
cied himself lost, until he came upon Barbara. 

She was seated high above him in the 
crotch of an old tree, and the full light fell 
upon her in splashes through the leaves, like 
an overflow of some bright liquid. The grey¬ 
hounds were whimpering and scratching at 
the bole of the tree, and she teased them by 
swinging the loop of their leash just out of 
reach. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 43 

Dering spoke when within a few yards of 
her. “ So glad you are all right!” he cried, 
boyishly. “ I called three times, but you 
were always out. You seem possessed of the 
spirit of locomotion.” 

She looked at him from beneath her 
loosened hair, and controlled her voice suc¬ 
cessfully in replying. She said that she was 
very sorry to have missed him, but that she 
was generally out all day in both good and 
bad weather. 

“ Can’t I call in the evening, then ?” asked 
Dering. 

She could not think of any plausible excuse, 
and said, “ Yes.” 

“ You don’t say it very cordially,” he ob¬ 
jected, but in blithe, unoffended tones. “ Per¬ 
haps you’d rather I wouldn’t come ? Perhaps 
people bore you ?” 

Barbara could not help laughing. This 
seemed to embolden Dering, who advanced 
and looked up at her. “ Do you know I 
think we’d be such good friends ?” he said, 
genially. 

“ Why, I’ve scarcely spoken two words to 
you,” replied Barbara. 


44 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ One feels things sometimes,” said Dering, 
not at all discomfited. “ I was sure I would 
like you as soon as I saw your profile.” 

“ And how about it now that you have seen 
my full face ?” 

“ Oh, I like it better and better. It has a 
generous, sensuous breadth that is splendid.” 

“Nothing else in ‘ ous,’ I hope?” said 
Barbara, dryly. 

“Nothing you wouldn’t like. I see you 
think me very free and easy. People often 
do.” 

“ I don’t wonder,” said Barbara, laughing 
again. 

“ Well, as long as you aren’t angry I don’t 
care. You laugh like a sport.” 

“ Like a what ?” said Barbara. 

Dering shifted his position, and lounged 
against the tree-trunk. 

“Yes, it’s slang,” he replied. “I’ve an 
awful habit of using slang: I’m afraid I’d 
use it to the Almighty if I were suddenly 
translated.” 

“You’d probably have to be translated for 
him to understand,” began Barbara, merrily, 
then stopped and colored. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 45 

“ That’s a dreadfully bad pun,” she said, 
with humility. 

“ If you weren’t up a tree already, I wouldn’t 
spare you,” answered Dering. 

“ That’s much worse than mine.” 

“ I know it: I did it on purpose. Are you 
going to let me call ?” 

“ Why, yes, of course. Why do you doubt 
it?” 

“ I don’t know. I’m an odd fellow. I 
fancied you had taken a dislike to me.” 

“No, I have not,” asserted Barbara, in a 
decided voice. 

Then she grew very pale, and looked at 
him strangely. “ I will explain what made 
you believe that some day,” she said. 

She did not understand the violent revul¬ 
sion of feeling which had come upon her. 
She was glad, delighted, to be looking at him. 
It did not shock her as she had dreaded. 
She felt light-hearted and gay as she had not 
hoped to feel any more. She was only afraid 
that he would notice the absorbed, thirsting 
stare with which her eyes returned again and 
again to his eyes, and tried to fix them on 
other objects,—the dance of the sunlit leaves, 


46 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


the greyhounds, a cardinal-bird that seemed 
to streak the veiled background with its 
flame-like flashings. In vain. Something 
of the feeling that impels a wilful drunkard 
seized upon her. She would intoxicate her 
bodily self with this long-denied sight; she 
would drink him into the waste places of her 
soul and make memory green again; she 
would—here a sudden shivering overtook 
her—why should she not pretend in truth 
that he was her husband? It would be 
known only to herself; an empty pleasure; 
a mere painting of delight; heaven reflected 
in a pool. The shivering became so violent 
that Dering noticed it. 

“You are cold,” he exclaimed, quickly. 
“ Don’t you think you stay out too late in 
these chilly autumn evenings? You see the 
sun is almost set.” 

“Yes, I must go,” said Barbara. 

He reached up and swung her to the ground. 
It was a light, easy gesture, full of the re¬ 
strained power that women like. To feel a 
strong man minister to their fragile wants has 
jail the fascination of watching a steam-ham¬ 
mer employed in the frivolous occupation of 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADf 


47 


cracking almonds. To see the power that 
could crush transformed into the power that 
befriends is in both cases blood-stirring. And 
then his strong shoulders beneath her hands 
were so like Yal’s shoulders, and the glint of 
his smile Yal’s own, and his impetuous way 
of piloting her over rough places,—all Yal’s. 
She stopped suddenly and put up her hands 
to her throat with a wild gesture. Dering 
pulled up short also, terribly alarmed, and 
fearing that she was going to faint again. He 
could not think what he was to do in these 
lonely woods on the edge of dark with a 
swooning woman, and a slight feeling of irri¬ 
tation stung him. 

“ Good Lord !” he said, grasping her arm a 
little roughly, “ you don’t feel faint, do you ?” 

“ No, no: just stifled for a minute,” an¬ 
swered Barbara; but as they walked on he 
said, rather dogmatically, that in her state of 
health it was little short of outrageous for her 
to be so much alone. 

“ My state of health!” cried Barbara, 
feeling also irritated. “ There was never a 
healthier woman than I.” 

“Indeed?” said Dering, dryly. “You 


48 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


won’t deny, perhaps, that there have been 
more prudent ones ?” 

Barbara was silent. She felt that she could 
not then explain anything to him, and 
dragged him forward in her eagerness to be 
out of that shadow-striped, many-noised wood. 
Dering’s irritation vanished as he felt the 
violent tremblings which swept her from time 
to time. 


IV. 

They stepped from the shelter of the woods 
into the teeth of a brown gale. The hills lay 
in overlapping wedges of gray-violet against a 
long ribbon of wan light, the Scotch weatlier- 
glim. The fields were a seething reach of 
dark-gray weeds and grasses; the sky a flap¬ 
ping cloak of gray, blown back from the 
shoulders of some invisible giantess, and the 
shadows on the bleached downs her footprints. 

The wind blew in volumes bulging with 
fierce sound. It hurled Barbara and Dering 
against one another, and tore away her hat, 
next enveloped them in a sudden eddy of 
whirling sticks and leaves. Dering stooped 
his head and shouted,— 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 


49 


“We can’t go on in this. Isn’t there some 
big tree we can get under ?” 

“Yes, there is a tulip-tree at the foot of 
that hill,” shrieked Barbara, putting her lips 
close to his ear. 

He was conscious of her warm breath amid 
all that hurly. 

They then struggled down-hill together, 
and at the bottom were confronted by a tear¬ 
ing stream, shaggy with foam. He was hesi¬ 
tating what method to pursue, when Barbara 
sprang forward and leaped deliberately, first 
in and then out of the water, which was 
at no place very deep. He followed, angry 
again. 

“ I never — saw— such — a — reckless — 
woman!” he roared. But the wind blew his 
words backward, and Barbara did not hear 
them. She ran ahead and crouched down 
finally among the overhanging roots of an 
enormous tree, and he came and seated him¬ 
self beside her. Together they looked at the 
western sky. It was one vast, ragged confu¬ 
sion of cloud and glare. The naked branches 
of the trees along the road knotted and un¬ 
knotted themselves angrily, and through them 

5 


50 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

the wind slithered and hissed like a winged 
serpent. 

“ You must be bitterly cold,” said Dering. 
“ And your feet are wet, too.” 

“ No,” answered Barbara. Then she turned 
her face towards him with its up-blowing 
swirls of hair. He could make out nothing 
distinctly, beyond the glisten of her eyes as 
the strange light caught them. 

“ I like it,” she said. “ It rouses me. It 
stings, but it wakens.” 

“ That is why I like it,” responded Dering, 
briefly. “It is like drinking a witch-brew, 
—cold in the mouth, hot in the vitals. I 
wish we could be blown for a long way over 
those hustling tree-tops.” 

“ Yes, I wish so. One cannot think much 
in such an uproar except such thoughts as it 
suggests.” 

“ You mean one cannot hark backward,” 
said Dering. 

“Yes. How do you know?” 

“ I am beginning to feel your thoughts as 
they form.” 

“It is the wind. I am always full of 
electricity in a wind like this.” 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 51 

“ I feel it. I can tell you where your 
hands are without looking at you.” 

“ Where are they ?” 

“ One over the other against your breast.” 

“ Why, how strange!” 

“ You see I am different too in the wind.” 

“ Yes, you are. We are like trees. The 
wind is our soul. It blows life into us. 
Without it we are mere vegetables.” 

“ I can’t think of you as a vegetable,” said 
Dering, and they laughed a little. She drew 
nearer him; he could feel the thick stuff of 
her gown press against him in the blurred 
gloom. The wind whirled around them, like 
an invisible elf romping. 

“Your voice sounds so strange and bodi¬ 
less,” said Barbara. “ I can just see you.” 

“ And I can just see you. It is the light 
of dreams.” 

“And of the places after death. You 
seem like a ghost.” 

“ You talk like one,” said Dering. “ You 
are entirely different in this mood from what 
I thought you.” 

“ Perhaps you thought that vividly-colored 
people never had gray thoughts ?” 


52 THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 

“ Perhaps.” 

“ You see that they do, though. I feel as 
though I had taken wine. I want to talk. 
I want to say many things to you. They 
surge up in my mind as the wind does in the 
woods there. Do you think me crazy ?” 

“ No, but I feel a little crazy myself. You 
are like a big, flute-voiced elf-queen sitting 
there with only your eyes aglow. Every¬ 
thing has changed about you,—my ideas and 
all.” He laughed again. 

“ What does it matter ? Let us give each 
other our red-hot thoughts, not wait for them 
to cool to cinders in the breath of convention¬ 
ality and commonplace.” 

“ I will give you one now, then.” 

“ What is it ?” 

“ I like you.” 

“ You did not like me at first, then ?” 

“ No; I thought you ordinary.” 

“What has made you change your opin¬ 
ion ?” 

“ Perhaps you are really an elf-queen.” 

“Was it not the daughters of the elf-king 
who were hollow and had no hearts ?” 

“ That was because they were stuffed so full 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 53 

of precious thoughts that some thief stole 
them, and they gave their hearts away.” 

“ Women never give away their hearts.” 

“ What then ?” 

“They are torn up, like the flowers of 
Eastern legend, that men may find jewels at 
their roots.” 

“ You are a strange woman.” 

“ You are a strange man.” 

“ If I were a doctor I should say you had 
a fever.” 

“ I feel as though I had. See how hot my 
hand is, and I have my glove off.” 

He took her bare hand in his; their full 
pulses throbbed into one. She gazed at him 
with sparkling eyes; her lips curled corner- 
wise into a smile, and she drew ragged, uneven 
breaths. She fancied that it would be like 
this if she had gone to visit her husband’s 
grave in this ghoul-light, and he had come 
up in his grave-clothes and sat on its edge and 
talked to her. But Dering’s hand was not 
the hand of the dead. She drew hers away 
suddenly, and started to her feet, when a 
slanting blast dashed her down again beside 
him. Putting out his hand to draw her furs 
6 * 


54 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

closer about her, lie let it rest against her 
throat. She shivered, and sunk down a little 
from his touch. 

“ Barbara,’’ he said, unsteadily, “ you have 
played me some witcli-trick. What is this I 
feel for you ? It is gruesome, but strong. I 
feel as though I did not want to leave you. 
I hate this murky half-glimmer, and yet I 
would be content to sit here with you day after 
day, night after night, for a long time. I 
think my mind must be akin to your mind. 
I am hungry for your thoughts. If you were 
Amina in the story, I think I would wait for 
you at the church-yard gate every night and 
not be afraid.” 

Then she began to laugh, wild, clamorous 
laughter, made loud or low as the wind 
swelled or withdrew. 

“ Yes, yes, yes,” she said, “that is what I 
am,—Amina. I live on dead bodies. I am 
only happy when prying into a grave. 
Church-yards are my lurking-places. I 
must begin to eat rice with a bodkin.” 

He held her firmly, still with his hand on 
her throat. 

“ Go on,” he said, after a while, in a per- 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 55 

fectly grave voice. “ I seem to understand 
your wild mood in some strange way. I 
shan’t attempt to reason with you. Some 
day you’ll tell me everything.” 

“ Yes, everything, everything,” she panted, 
pressing close to him. “ You are good to 
understand. It sounds very crazy, I know.” 

“ I think you must have suffered a great 
deal.” 

“ I have! I have!” she said, sobbingly. 
“ Oh, I wish I could tell you now!” 

“ You shall tell me only when you wish to. 
If it is now, I will listen. But I can wait as 
long as you choose. I am very patient.” 

“ Yes, you must wait. I can’t talk con¬ 
nectedly in this wind: it blows all but the 
dregs of my thoughts into foam.” 

“ I am afraid, to be very prosaic, that you 
are taking cold. But what are we to do? 
Walking is impossible, for you at least, until 
this hurly-burly subsides.” 

“ I notice that your slang blows away too,” 
said Barbara, with sudden humor. 

“ Oh, my slang is a garment,” he answered. 
“ Whenever I go swimming in very deep 
waters I leave it on the bank.” 


56 


THE QUICK OR THE HEADt 

“ How I love to swim! It is one of the 
few out-of-door things I really care for.” 

“You must look superb with that dark- 
gold head of yours drenched. I should like 
to see you coming down a shadowy stream in 
this light, laughing that dirling laugh of 
yours, like a true water-kelpie. How the 
folks on the bank would screech and run!” 

“ I seem to suggest eerie names to you. 
First I am an elf-queen, then Amina, then a 
water-kelpie. But I do swim well. I can 
swim in surf. I am so strong. Feel.” 

“ Gad! you have got a biceps!” said Dering, 
amazedly. “ You are the most extraordinary 
mixture I ever knew. When you first came 
in that evening at Rosemary, I thought you 
just big and heavy: you didn’t give me an 
idea of strength. Now you remind me of a 
war-goddess: your piled-up hair is like a 
helmet in this curious light. Look here: 
some day we’ll go swimming together. I 
know the weirdest old garden in Italy; there’s 
an enormous lake in it, lined with white 
marble; you can see the ripples like gold 
threads against the bottom on a moonlight 
night. I should like to see you with that 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADf 57 

water curling about you. How splendid 
those arms of yours would look dripping 
from wrist to shoulder! Ugh ! what a great, 
golden, uncanny thing you are !” 

“You must swim well yourself: don’t 
you? A man should swim, and ride, and 
wrestle, and fence, as he breathes.” 

“ I have always thought so,” said Dering. 

“ How alike we are!” 

This sentence always marks a distinct 
epoch in the acquaintance of a man and 
woman. The hands of friendship and love 
are drawn apart as by two passing trains, and 
friendship is left on the siding. These two 
turned their faces towards each other in the 
grim twilight, although they could now dis¬ 
cern only a vague massed darkness where 
each was. 

“Yes,—more than you know,” said Dering, 
concisely. 

“ I don’t see how it is: you understand me 
before I speak.” 

“ And you understand me after I speak,— 
what is really much rarer.” 

The wind was now dying down. A fitful, 
whinnering gust occasionally shook the dry 


58 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

limbs above them, wailed up> and down the 
road for a little space, fleered sullenly to lee¬ 
ward, and was still. 

Dering rose and held out his hands to Bar¬ 
bara, who found herself on her feet and 
almost against his breast at the same time. 
She withdrew a little hurriedly, and the 
darkness fell down between them. They 
then groped their way stumblingly to a gate 
just above, and passed through together. 
Among the tall weeds on the comb of the 
hill, some stars were a-tremble like belated 
fireflies. 

“There are your elfin maids of honor 
coming to find you,” said Dering. “ I can 
see the witch-fires in their caps.” 

“You see they don’t know there is a 
mortal with me.” 

“ Perhaps they mean that this mortal shall 
put on immortality.” 

“ Don’t!” said Barbara, shaken by one of 
the violent trembling fits which had alarmed 
him earlier in the evening. “ That’s in the 
burial-service. How can you speak lightly 
of such things ? Oh, this has been a terrible, 
terrible walk!” 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


59 


“ Thank you/’ said Dering, gravely. 

“ Don’t laugh,—don’t laugh,” she urged, 
grasping his arm with both hands. “Oh, 
why did you say that ? I can see it all now! 
—that horrible, long church, like a vault 
itself, filled with leering, silly, curious faces, 
—that mouthing man in his robes,—the 
coffin- Oh!” 

“ Barbara! Oh, you poor girl!” said 
Dering, with curdling pity. He put both 
arms about her, and she clung to him, gasp¬ 
ing and trembling, in the desolation of night- 
blurred upland. 

Y. 

Dering came to Rosemary the next day, 
and the next, but Barbara was not to be seen. 
For nearly a week she did not leave her room, 
and when she came down at last, drawn by 
the wooing of the warm November afternoon, 
which had in it some of the after-glow of 
summer, like the warmth left by young lips 
on those of the aged, she found Dering seated 
on the shallow stone steps of the old portico, 
playing with the greyhound pups. He put 
them aside as best he could, to greet her, and 
his eyes went deep into her eyes. He almost 



co the quick or THE DEADt 

felt the moisture of that diving gaze; and 
then her lids fell, but his look remained upon 
her; and after a moment or so he began to 
think that she inspired him with imagination, 
such strange fancies stirred him when in her 
presence. This afternoon, notably, she seemed 
to him, in her gray gauze gown, like one of 
the mist-wreaths from that strange evening 
on which he had last seen her, blown into this 
golden to-day,—a pale cloud, in shape of a 
woman, which some far sunset had kissed in 
dying, leaving its light upon her hair. 

As he rose to meet her, he noticed that 
she shrank, and, man-like, misinterpreted the 
motion. He thought it was the memory of 
their last walk together that caused that in¬ 
voluntary withdrawing, when it was in fact 
the unmournful character of the gown that 
she wore,—an airy thing, held in place by an 
old silver girdle, and meant only for feminine 
eyes,—as unwidow-like a garment as can be 
imagined; suitable perhaps for a young girl 
who mourns the death of her first kiss, but 
nothing more material. Her bright, smooth 
flesh glowed through the smoky folds, like 
Pleasure revealing herself through dreams. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


61 


Dering felt her beauty cling to him from 
head to foot, like a veil whose woof was fire 
and whose warp mist. It thrilled and chilled 
him at the same time. Pale and aerial as 
was her dress, it was like a breath of cold air 
between them. He was reminded of some 
rich tropical flower, blooming behind the 
meshes of the Spanish moss. 

All this passed through his mind in a 
whiff. His words were prosaic enough. 

“I came to bring you a book/’ he said. 
“ I suppose you’ll laugh at me and call me 
Browning-mad, but I like it awfully. It’s 
all scribbled up. I thought you were still 
ill, you know. I thought it might cheer 
you.” 

“ No, I don’t laugh at you. I like Brown¬ 
ing. It takes courage to admit it, though: 
people always think one posing. It is almost 
as trying to acknowledge Browning as it is to 
acknowledge the Deity.” 

“ Yes, isn’t it ? I wonder he acknowledges 
himself.” 

They laughed, Barbara with some nervous¬ 
ness. 

“ Suppose you come and sit here,” said 
6 


62 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

Dering,. “and let us look over it together. 
This air will be like wine to you. I’ll get 
that fur rug out of the drawing-room.” 

“ Wait,” said Barbara. “ I am too chilly 
in this thin dress. While you get that I will 
ring for a cloak.” 

She rejoined him with a dark cloak drop¬ 
ping from her shoulders. With her Naiad¬ 
like attire hidden from sight, she felt more 
matronly and at her ease. He was really a 
boy to her, just her age within a week or 
two. She had heard of his every school and 
college escapade from her husband, and actu¬ 
ally knew the names of two of his salad-day 
flames. She smiled at him in a distinctly 
motherly way, as he seated himself beside 
her on the rug with those nestling move¬ 
ments which always amused her. 

“ I like you when you look like that,” he 
said, pleasedly. “ You’ve got an air of The 
Mother of Nations. Do you know you’re a 
good bit like the Milo ?” 

“How very absurd!” said Barbara, but 
glowed with the inward satisfaction which 
always possesses flesh and blood on hearing 
itself compared to marble. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


63 


“ Yes, you do. I used to think the Milo a 
big, lumpy woman; but she’s the embodiment 
of grandeur to me now.” 

“I believe you thought me a big, lumpy 
woman at first ?” 

“ Not lumpy,—only too big. See here : 
I’ve got an odd trick of opening books at ran¬ 
dom : I’m going to open this for you before we 
begin reading. Now-” 

She was interested, and leaned her head 
close to his over the opening book. His curls 
seemed to spring against her hair with a cer¬ 
tain life of their own. She drew back, no¬ 
ticing it. 

“ What’s the matter ?” said Dering. 

“ Your hair,—it seemed to move.” 

“ Did it ? I don’t blame it. Look, this is 
for you : 

“ God, that created all things, can renew! 

And then, though after-life to please me now 

Must have no likeness to the past, what hinders 

Reward from-” 

“ Stop !” said Barbara. She put her open 
hand on the page, shutting out the words, and 
he glanced up wondering, to see that she was 



64 THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 

strangely pale,—not a vestige of color in lip 
or cheek. Under the bright up-springing 
of her strong hair, her face had the white¬ 
ness of a dove’s wing against a flame-brown 
cloud. 

“ What’s the matter ?” he said, again. 

“ I don’t like that sort of thing. It’s 
ghastly. Please don’t do anything like 
that ever again. I—I loathe the suj)ernatu- 
ral. I don’t believe in it, of course, but I 
loathe it.” 

“ I’m glad you think me supernatural. 
I’m beginning to think you are. At least if 
you’re not supernatural you’re superwomanly. 
I never saw any one an atom like you. I 
wish you’d kindly tell me where I made a 
mis-cue that time ?” 

“ Ah ! your slang-garment. So you don’t 
feel yourself swimming in deep waters this 
afternoon ?” 

“ No,—only wading. It’s deepish, though. 
I will soon take refuge in naked English. I 
wish you’d tell me what’s supernatural in 
opening a book at random ? If it hits, I call 
it a coincidence. I don’t see how that could 
possibly have hit, I must say. I thought it 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 65 

decidedly a-gley. Was there any meaning in 
it ? There must have been, to work you up 
so.” 

“ Yes, there was,” said Barbara, and again 
the blood rushed from her face. Dering 
looked at her rather curiously for a few 
seconds, and then held out the book. 

“ You open for me,” he said. 

“I told you I disliked the idea,”—then, 
with sudden contradiction, “ I’ve done some 
wonderful things in that way myself.” 

“Why, do you open books too? We are 
alike, by Jove!” 

“Yes, I open the Bible sometimes; but 
that’s an old Methodist trick.” 

“ Do open this now. I’ve a reason.” 

Barbara took the book from him into her 
gloveless hands, which were long, and slen¬ 
derly firm, with perfectly-kept nails dashed 
here and there by little white flecks. Their 
touch lingered on the mental sense, as rare 
music does on the mental ear, being full of 
swift, tingling pulses, warm and elastic as 
some fruit,—a man’s touch to a woman,—not 
quite human to a man. The hands of certain 
women are more subtly sweet of contact than 
6 * 


66 THE QUICK OR THE DEADf 

tlie lips of others, and their very hair seems 
to breathe. 

She hesitated, opened the book hastily with 
her face averted, and thrust rather than held 
it out to him. 

“Shall I read what your finger marks?” 
said Dering. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Just that one line?” 

“Yes. It’s probably something too deep 
for any one but Truth to dip up in her 
bucket.” 

“No, it isn’t: it’s Truth herself.” 

“ Let me see.” 

They bent together again, then drew apart, 
but holding each other with varying eyes. 
The line ran,— 

“ I would love infinitely and be loved.” 

He leaned forward after a while, pulled a 
blade of grass, and marked the place with it. 

“ It’s awfully curious,” he then said, tossing 
back on his folded arms among the gray fur, 
—“most amazingly curious. I’ve just been 
passing through a phase of my life,—which 
has been anything but an orthodox one, by 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


67 


the way,—and last night I came to that con¬ 
clusion. I think I would rather love in¬ 
finitely, even without being loved, than not 
love at all. I’m not a bit sentimental, I do 
assure you!” he supplemented, hastily, spring¬ 
ing erect all at once. Her gravely laughing 
eyes reassured him. 

“ I never take remarks personally,” she 
said ; then, with a change of mental position 
as swift as had been his physical one, “ Don’t 
want to love !” she cried, leaning to him; 
“ don’t wish for it! I used to; I used to pray 
for it every night. Oh, it sounds heroic, and 
superb, and godlike, to say that you are will¬ 
ing to take sorrow along with love,—grief in 
proportion to it. You would not, when the 
time came !—you would not! If we live we 
suffer. We had better be the coals of hell 
than the people they burn. And yet coals 
can’t love, you know. Oh! I don’t know 
what I’m saying!” She got to her feet and 
ran down the old steps, out into the dappled 
twilight. 

Dering followed her. “Look here,” he 
said: “ you needn’t ever be afraid I’ll misun¬ 
derstand you. It would be absolutely impos- 


68 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

sible,—absolutely. Go on and talk just as 
crazily as ever you please. We’re all crazy, 
—every one of us,—and the very craziest of 
all is the man who says he isn’t.” 

“ But don’t want to love,” repeated Barbara. 
“ It isn’t a romantic girl talking to you. I 
am a woman of twenty-six, and I know,—I 
know it all. Whenever I think of it,—when¬ 
ever I lie awake at night and think of the 
whole weary thing, from first to last,—I am 
so grateful, grateful, grateful that I never had 
a child. I used to long for one. Now I am so 
glad !—so glad! I have gotten up on bitter, 
winter nights in my thin night-gown, trem¬ 
bling all over with the cold, to thank God for 
that! At least I haven’t that to answer for!” 

“I know so well how you feel,” said John 
Dering, gravely. 

“ Most women are never happy until they 
have a child, you know,” she panted on ; “ and 
at first, at first I did long for something to 

remind—something that belonged- Yes, 

yes, I did want a child of my very own; but 
now I tell you I can’t thank God enough 


She paused, exj>ecting some words of re- 




THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 69 

monstrance, and he said, in a voice which 
was as different as possible from his usual 
boyish tone,— 

“If I were a woman I should feel just as 
you do.” 

“ Oh, how good you are!—how you under¬ 
stand !” she cried, passionately, and reached 
him both her hands. He took them in his 
own strong, nervous young hands, which 
moved incessantly even while holding hers, 
and waited as if for her to go on. 

“ You are so good,” she said, again. 

“ Why do women always persist in calling 
men good when they understand them? I 
honestly believe if Satan were to let a woman 
see, while she was roasting, that he compre¬ 
hended her sufferings, she would say, 4 How 
good you are !’ ” 

“ But you are good : no man who was not 
would listen so patiently and not sneer. I 
don’t mean that you’ve never done anything 
wrong-” 

“ I hope not.” 

“ Nor ever will again-” 

“ Heaven forbid!” 

“ But you understand me.” 



70 THE quick or the dead t 

“ One has to be a bit good to do that,” he 
put in, quickly and somewhat shyly. She 
moved impulsively towards him. 

“ I am so glad you like me!” she said. “ It 
isn’t quite so dreadful since you have come.” 

“ You dear thing!” 

“No, it isn’t,—it isn’t. Do you know I 
can remember when I used to like to be 
alone ? Asa girl I liked it. Ugh! how we 
change! how we change !” 

“Yes, we do,” said Dering, feelingly. 

“Will you stay to tea to-night? We can 
have it all to ourselves in the drawing-room, 
before that big fire. Aunt Fridis always sits 
in the library. I make such good tea. We 
can have the dogs in. It will be quite bright 
and cheerful, won’t it? I think we’d enjoy a 
long talk over the fire. A wood fire always 
thaws my thoughts. We could roast some 
chestnuts, too.” 

“ Nothing personal in that, I trust ?” 

“ What do you mean ? Oh ! that disgust¬ 
ing slang! Never mind: you can say any¬ 
thing if you’ll stay. But you will stay, won’t 
you ? Are you fond of music ? I play very 
well,—really well, you know. Oh! I forgot 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 71 

there’s no piano. Well, never mind : we can 
talk. Every time we talk together I feel I 
know you ten years better.” She was hurry¬ 
ing on eagerly, feverishly, glancing every 
now and then over one shoulder or the other 
as at some haunting presence. 

“I tell you what I’m going to do,” said 
Dering, suddenly. “ I’m going to make you 
come in the house this instant, and then 
you’re to go up-stairs and put on something 
warm,—a tea-gown, if you have one. You 
are shivering all over, down to your finger- 
ends. And then you’re to pull up to that 
big fire you spoke of and let me amuse you: 
that’s what you’re to do.” 

“Oh, how like Val!” she said, under her 
breath; “ how like him !” 

Dering turned a little sharply. 

“ What was that ?” he said. “ I didn’t 
quite catch it, you speak so fast.” 

“ Nothing,” she assured him. 

As they mounted the portico steps together 
he turned to her. “ It has just come to me 
what you said, and I don’t want you to mis¬ 
lead yourself. I’m not really in the least like 
my cousin; that is, excej)t as far as looks go.” 


72 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


She caught at his arm to steady herself, and 
her tempestuous breathing frightened him a 
little. 

“There, : ” he said, “I’m a brute. If he 
was Valentine I’m certainly Orson.” And 
he smiled with a grim humor. 

“ No, no, you’re not,” whispered Barbara. 
“ Only you have yet to suffer.” 

“ I don’t know but what I have,” said 
Dering, somewhat gloomily. And then she 
let him guide her into the dark drawing¬ 
room and unfasten her cloak. 


VI. 

As Barbara was about to leave the room, 
Dering came and put himself in her way. 

44 1 wonder if you would think me insuffer¬ 
ably cheeky if I were to ask you something ?” 
he said, with a suggestion of embarrassment. 

44 1 should say that it depended a good deal 
upon the something.” 

44 Well, then, would you mind putting on a 
white gown ?—that is, of course, if you change 
your gown. You don’t mind, do you ?” 

44 Mind ? Mind putting on a white gown, 
or mind your asking me to ?” 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 


73 


“ Either,—botll. ,, 

“ Not in the least.” 

“ You are a dear thing!” 

He reached out his hand impulsively, she 
placed hers in it, and they both laughed. 
She came back after a while, feeling rather 
too big in her loose gown of white China 
crape. 

“ I feel something as I fancy a statue does, 
when it is suddenly done into marble after 
having been in the clay for a long while. I 
feel aggressively white; and there is so much 
of me to put in white.” 

“ Oh, well, there’s a good deal of the 
Milo,” said Dering. 

“ Yes, but even she dispensed with her 
arms.” 

They laughed again, Barbara afterwards 
sitting silent for some time, and filliping at 
the little silver bells which ornamented her 
hand-screen. They were both looking in the 
fire, but Dering could see her from the side 
of his eye, and wondered how he could ever 
have thought her too big. It was like cavil 
ling at the size of a flowering tree, he told 
himself. In reality Barbara would have been 
7 


74 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


handsomer had there been less of her and her 
good looks thus more concentrated. As we 
grow older, we like our creeds and slippers 
larger, our clubs and houris smaller. 

Barbara was not in any way conscious of 
Dering, as she struck at the fringe of bells: 
she was merely thinking how sad and pitiful 
a thing it was that she would never again 
care what sort of garments she wore, so long 
as they covered her and attested that she was 
in her right mind. She could not imagine 
taking any interest in her attire. When a 
woman neglects her wardrobe, it is as when a 
man loses his interest in his cook. Like the 
proverbial straw, although of infinitesimal 
importance in itself, either fact will tell which 
way the wind of destiny is blowing. When 
the wardrobe and the cook flourish, then for 
the coast of joy : if they are overlooked, then 
for the islands of disillusion or sorrow. A 
woman’s hair, however, is the final test. As 
long as she curls it she cannot be truly said to 
have resigned either soul or body to despair. 
Let the accustomed and becoming ringlets be 
brushed austerely back from brow and tem¬ 
ples, then in truth is consolation an exile. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


75 


Barbara’s rich love-locks were yet curled 
above her straight brows. 

If you had asked her, she would undoubt¬ 
edly have replied that life to her was a burden 
to be borne, cheerfully or resignedly as the 
case might be. She would have smiled at 
any suggestion of future joy, as surely as she 
would have frowned to think that any one 
could deem her capable of ever again desiring 
earthly felicity. She would have told you 
that, to her, existence meant resignation and 
religion a great patience. Yet, strange as it 
may seem, beneath all this weight of gathered 
and dried twigs from the tree of a very sor¬ 
rowful knowledge, a tiny Hope rustled its yet 
incapable wings. It was too small and just- 
born a thing to be conscious even of its own 
personality, much less to make Barbara ac¬ 
quainted with that fact. She perhaps felt the 
tickling now and then of its half-fledged 
pinions, but this sensation disturbed rather 
than jdeased. 

Dering, who was much in love with her 
already, was congratulating himself that at 
last he had found a woman, young, hand¬ 
some, and intelligent, who would sincerely 


76 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

give and receive, the highest order of friend¬ 
ship. An old councillor had once said to 
him, “ Young man, if you want a friend in 
a young woman, choose one who has had 
some great sorrow.” Barbara had been the 
possessor of this required item; she, more¬ 
over, corresponded marvellously to his rather 
exalted ideal of womanhood. Among many 
future delights which he pictured as attendant 
upon their communion of soul, that of the let¬ 
ters which they would exchange was predomi¬ 
nant. What charming letters he felt sure that 
she would write !—as easy and unconventional 
as the lines of the delightful garment which 
she now wore. What delicate humor would 
characterize them! what a subtle play of 
fancy! what quips and quirks of lighter 
moods! He could fancy those long, gracile 
fingers moving over the thin, white sheets 
which she would send him, the five rubies 
above her wedding-ring winking impishly 
from her other hand used to steady the paper. 
He seemed to follow these graceful hands 
from wrist to shoulder, from shoulder to 
throat; her bending face, illuminated by the 
white reflection from the paper, grew also on 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


77 


Ills sight. She would, perhaps, wear that 
dense yet filmy gown; in the privacy of her 
own apartment, she would have unbound the 
riotous masses of her copper-colored hair; 
her delicate foot in its web-like stocking 
would be thrust in and out of her pretty 
bedroom slipper as thoughts and fancies 
crowded on her; she would doubtless have 
tossed other discarded garments on some 
chair in that charming room; the peeps of 
delicate lace from crumpled petticoats would 
be enchanting. She would- 

“ A penny,” said Barbara,—“ two,—three, 
—even four. Your thoughts were so tre¬ 
mendous that you were literally glowering.” 

“ I’m sure I couldn’t have been glowering,” 
said Dering. 

“That leaves me to infer that they were 
pleasant thoughts.” 

“ So they were.” 

“ Oh! then I can have no hope of 
purchasing them. It is only disagreeable 
thoughts that are purchasable. How the 
wind blows!” 

“Yes: it seems the signal for it to wake 
when we are together.” 



78 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ I am so glad you stayed! but I’m afraid 
your walk home will be very dreary.” 

“ I will have those unsold thoughts.” 

“ Cannot you give me some, even if you 
will not sell them ?” 

“ Why, yes, I will. I was thinking what 
congenial friends we two are going to be. I 
was thinking what delightful letters you 
could write. I dare say you think me very 
presuming. Do you ?” 

“ No,” said Barbara. She let the hand- 
screen fall with a little tinkle into her lap, 
and held up her laced fingers between the 
flames and her eyes. 

“ No,” she said again, seriously, turning 
him her full face. “I do not see how you 
could even say that (because I’m sure you 
don’t think it), after the way I’ve talked to 
you.” 

“If I had any doubts,” replied Dering, 
“ they are gone now.” 

“ I am sure of it. I don’t feel as though 
we would ever have a misunderstanding.” 

“ Nor I.” 

“I do not see why people should ever 
quarrel. There are always stones in any 


TIIE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


79 


road, but a skilful driver avoids them. This 
very road of friendship, one can either jolt 
over it or be whisked smoothly along,— 
counting idiosyncrasies as stones, of course.” 

“You must have been as strange a child 
as you are a woman,” said Dering. 

“ I don’t know,” said Barbara. “ All chil¬ 
dren are more or less strange, only grown 
people don’t take the trouble to find it 
out. Childhood is rarely ever commonplace. 
Every child has at some time one thought 
original and startling enough to make its 
acquaintance a benefit. I remember once a 
child telling me that she thought ‘ hiccoughs 
must be prayers to the devil.’ Did you ever 
hear of such an extraordinary idea ?” 

She had been hurrying on, partly from 
real interest in her subject, partly from a de¬ 
sire to be saying something. 

Dering’s absent-minded length of gaze 
gave her a slightly uncomfortable feeling. 
She was almost used now to his resemblance 
to her husband, and the dissimilarity of 
his spiritual self was beginning to impress 
her. 

“ I don’t believe there ever was a woman 


80 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


the least like you,” he said, finally, withdraw¬ 
ing his look. 

“ Oh,” returned Barbara, “ every man says 
that to every woman whom he particularly 
likes. It is the same thing as telling one’s 
sweetheart that she is the only woman who 
ever really roused one’s whole nature, or that 
no man ever loved quite as one loves her,— 
etc., etc., etc.” 

She rose and began to move up and down 
the room with the long, padding gait peculiar 
to her. 

“You move like a panther,” said Dering. 
“ I can’t keep my eyes off you.” 

“ So I see,” she answered, laughing some¬ 
what nervously, and made as though she 
would sink into a chair. 

“ No, don’t,” he pleaded. “ Do move about. 
I can feel how restless you are. When you 
walk with that crouching, suppressed pace, I 
can almost hear the jungle-grasses crackle 
hack from your way. You do change so! 
Out in that wind you were like a witch thing, 
—uncanny,—all eyes and a blowse of red- 
gold hair. Then when I meet you sometimes 
walking, you are like a merry boy. Then you 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 81 

are like a shadow-woman: you were this after¬ 
noon in that thinnish gray gown. When you 
speak of Yal you are like a beautiful, forlorn 
Peri. There! you have changed again,—in 
a second! I never saw anything like it!” 

She held out her clasped hands to him, as 
he rose and approached her. 

“ Please do not speak of—him/’ she said, in 
a strained undertone. “ Please do not,—ever 
again.” 

Dering paused where he was, and did not 
come any nearer her. 

“ I promise you,” he said. “ I will not.” 

VII. 

Barbara had by this time become quite 
accustomed to the fact of Dering’s resem¬ 
blance to her husband. True, an occasional 
trick of voice or gesture would arrest her 
with a sense of pained cognizance, but she 
was beginning to connect his personality also 
with himself, and these characteristic traits, 
having a twofold association, wounded her 
less and less. They were together more fre¬ 
quently and for a longer time as the days fled 
backward, and it became his regulai custom 


82 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


to spend the evening at Rosemary. They 
were both bewitched by that sense of unworld¬ 
liness which possesses men and women of 
the world when alone together in the country, 
and it seemed to them as though they could 
never voluntarily have mured themselves in 
labyrinths of brick and stone during these 
late autumn days, now discovered to be the 
most desirable of all the year. 

It was on a bitterly cold, gray afternoon in 
November that these two comrades, as they 
now called themselves, were engaged in a 
game of “ graces” in the large central hall at 
Rosemary. The earlier day had been tem¬ 
pestuous and clattering with wind-whirled 
sleet, but a tawny cloud, that in streaming 
wildness resembled, perhaps, the flying mane 
of one of the Prophet’s fiery steeds when in 
mid-heaven, now streaked all the upper sky 
and sent a gold-red light glowing in at the 
hall windows. There were eight of these, 
tall, shrouded shapes, like uncased mummies, 
and where the faces should have been, that 
furnace-like radiance shone through folds of 
sheer muslin. 

The figures of Barbara and Dering were re- 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 


83 


yealed as by a gilded mist, while they swooped, 
with elastic movements among the shadows, 
here and there, which glittered as with mica. 
Now the rathe arm and throat of Barbara 
came into bright relief against the dusky 
formlessness, now it was Dering’s gay crest 
of curls and straining shoulders. The orange¬ 
ribboned hoops circled above, like two halos 
uncertain as to which of those handsome 
heads they were to saint. 

Barbara suddenly caught one of the bright 
rings on her arm and let it run up to her 
shoulder. 

“ You are not tired ?” said Dering. 

“ Only of this especial amusement. Look ! 
you cannot catch that before I do!” She 
sent the grace-hoop spinning down the long 
hall as she spoke, and leaped out after it. 
Dering was almost as quick. They met lius- 
tledly in the gloom at the farther end of the 
house, and both seized the hoop at once. 

“ I touched it first!” said Barbara. 

“ No, I!” declared Dering. 

“ Indeed, indeed I did!” persisted she. 

“ Indeed, indeed you didn’t!” he returned, 
mockingly. 


84 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


“ I will have it, at all events,” said Bar¬ 
bara. 

“Oh, if you want to tussle-” replied 

Dering. 

Of all delightful autumnal experiences, a 
romp in a big country hall towards twilight 
is the most exhilarating. Barbara and Der¬ 
ing wrangled like a boy and a girl over the 
grace-hoop. She was as evasive in her sud¬ 
den dives and twistings as a dream-woman. 
Their breath came hurriedly, and they be¬ 
gan to pant and laugh together. Dering was 
almost winning, when some small object tink¬ 
ling on the bare floor attracted their attention. 
Barbara suddenly released the grace-hoop and 
rushed forward. 

“You are welcome to your prize!” she 
called, pausing under one of the windows to 
examine her find. “ I have often longed to see 
what you have in this locket. Now I will pun¬ 
ish you for cheating. I will find out who your 
sweetheart is, and I will never again give you 
any peace!” 

“ Jove!” said Dering, “ was that my locket ? 
Come, Barbara, honestly,—don’t look at that, 
please; I really ask you.” 



THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 85 

Barbara’s reply was to press a little nearer 
the window, and curl her lips inward in her 
effort to separate the close rims of the small 
gold case in her hands. Dering came up 
behind her, and unceremoniously took both 
hands and locket into a tight grasp. This 
locket contained nothing more sentimental 
than an absurd photograph of Valentine 
Pomfret, taken when the two were at college 
together,—one of those deformed caricatures 
which one sometimes sees, and which consist 
of a Brobdingnagian head on a Liliputian 
body. Dering, by this time, knew enough of 
Barbara’s morbid sensitiveness to dread the 
effect which the sudden sight of this photo¬ 
graph might have upon her. 

“ I tell you I’m not joking,” he said. 

“ Nor I. There’s no use trying to bully 
me. You know I’m nearly as strong as you 
are. If you want another tow-row, all right ” 

This time the scuffle was wordless and 
somewhat earnest. 

“ I don’t want to hurt you,” said Dering, 
finally. 

“ Don’t alarm yourself. I’ll stand any 

amount of mangling to gain my end.” 

8 


86 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ You know I seriously mean to get that 
from you.” 

“So do I to see it.” 

“ I simply can’t hurt you,” said Dering, a 
little desperately, “ but I must have it. Why 
won’t you see I am in earnest ?” 

“ Why won’t, you see I am ?” 

“ But such an ado over a little thing!” 

“ That’s what I’ve been thinking.” 

“ Barbara-” 

“ It is my name.” 

“ I give you your last chance. It’s an 
antique resort, but if you don’t give me that 
locket I’ll—I’ll kiss you !” 

“ What a truly terrible threat!” 

“You don’t believe it; but I will, I tell 
you. I should think you might see that I’ve 
some real reason for not wishing you to see 
that locket.” 

“How deeply penetrating men are! As 
if that were not the very reason that I wanted 
to see it.” 

“You understand, then, that I really mean 
to kiss you if you don’t give it up ? Beally 
I do.” 

“Do you?” said Barbara. She escaped 



THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


87 


him by a sudden flashing movement, and 
rushed down the now almost absolutely dark 
hall, impelled by that delightful feeling of 
scared uncertainty which precipitates chil¬ 
dren down a long staircase, past darkling 
coignes where clutched fingers are waiting to 
grasp a loitering ankle. 

She dashed into the as yet lampless dining¬ 
room, doubled through a little corridor, and 
rushed back on her own traces, laughing 
gaspingly to think how she had escaped him. 
As she darted through another door back into 
the dining-room, she found herself almost in 
Dering’s arms. Even then, however, he did 
not secure her: she escaped once more, and 
fled into a dark little closet to the left, mis¬ 
taking it, alas! in her excitement, for a cor¬ 
responding door of exit. Dering followed 
her at once. She gave a kind of laughing 
cry, like a hysterical child, and flattened her¬ 
self against the wall, thrusting the locket be¬ 
hind her; but, catching her about the waist, 
he drew her forward, feeling for the locket 
with his other hand. He might as well have 
tried to open a boy’s fist. She bent from him, 
and made, this time, an altogether ineffectual 


88 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


attempt to get away. Dering, rather out of 
patience, stooped down ; she turned her head, 
a little frightened, and her lips brushed his, 
—a touch light as flower-leaves, fine as fire. 
In another instant both mouths had clung 
into a kiss. 

A great mental blow annihilates memory, 
just as it is annihilated by a great physical 
blow. Neither Barbara nor Dering recalled 
how they came to be grouped before the 
dining-room fire, he leaning back in a low 
arm-chair, she crouching with her hand- 
hidden face against his knee. All about 
them was a winter silence, broken only by 
the ticking of Dering’s watch and Barbara’s 
long-drawn, sobbing breaths. It seemed to 
him as though cold rills of wind were playing 
up and down his limbs, while the chair in 
which he sat, together with himself and 
Barbara, rose towards the ceiling, leaving the 
floor at a great distance beneath. He looked 
far into the hot core of the fire, thence down 
at the smooth curve of the head of his 
cousin’s wife, thinking how like were its 
shining strands of hair to the threads on a 
reel of silk, and grasping more firmly the 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 89 

handles of the chair in which he sat, in order 
to refrain from touching that winning lustre 
with his finger-ends. 

Barbara’s breath returned upon her face 
from the cloth of Dering’s trousers. She saw 
the fire-red in blurred lines between her 
fingers, and put some meaningless words to 
the ticking of his watch, fantastically liken¬ 
ing it to an echo of his heart, which rapped 
hurriedly above. She seemed to see through 
the top of her head his set face, unusual in 
its fierce pallor, and with eyes' gleaming as 
she had remembered them for that instant 
when they had flashed into hers over that 
eager kiss. The fire seemed a conscious 
presence to her, and its flames appeared to 
leap and cognizantly peer between her hiding 
fingers, until she felt almost as though in¬ 
quisitive eyes were upon her. It was cer¬ 
tain that she thought of everything but her 
present situation. She was kneeling upon a 
wrinkle in the hearth-rug, and, feeling that 
it chafed her knees, was reminded of the 
Persian prayer-rugs, and so of the desert, 
and so of the dreary possibilities which would 
be included for a woman during a prolonged 
8 * 


90 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

ride on camel-back. She wondered if Dering 
had ever mounted upon one of those pictur¬ 
esquely-distorted beasts, and was inclined to 
laugh when she found that she had forgotten 
whether it was in one of their many stom¬ 
achs or in their humps that they carried the 
supply of water which prevented them from 
suffering of thirst on their long journeys. 

Dering, in the mean while, became also the 
victim of a profound and ghastly desire to 
laugh. The corners of his mouth twisted 
eyeward in a mirthless and distorted grin 
which would have inexpressibly horrified 
Barbara had she chanced at that moment to 
glance up. He controlled this risible phe¬ 
nomenon by a violent effort, however, and 
resumed his grim stare into the fire, venturing 
after a while to pass a somewhat uncertain 
hand over her bending head. 

“ No, no,” whispered Barbara. 

“I beg your pardon,” he said, earnestly. 
“ I won’t touch you again. I only want to 
do what you wish.” 

She murmured something which he had to 
bend down to hear, and even then did not 
quite catch. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


91 


“ It shall be just as you say,” lie remarked, 
at a venture. 

“ You are so good,” she whispered back. 

“ But what must I do ? I leave it all to 
you. Must I go away ? I’ll go abroad, if 
you wish it. I’ll—I’ll go to India: I’ve al¬ 
ways wanted to go to India. I’ll send you 
some tiger-skins—um—that’s too common¬ 
place, eh ? What was it Isaacs sent his sweet¬ 
heart ? Tiger-ears, wasn’t it ? I’ll send you 
some tiger-ears.” 

“ How can you joke about it?” cried Bar¬ 
bara. 

“ I really don’t know,” replied Dering, 
sorrowfully. “ Reaction, I suppose.” 

“ Oh, it’s all so dreadful!—so dreadful!” 
came the smothered tones from his knees. 

“ No, I won’t agree to that,”—firmly. 

“ Oh, but you must. It’s the least that we 
can do.” 

“ What is ? to think it all dreadful ?” 

“ Yes, all of it,— all” 

“ Well, I just simply can’t. It may be a 
want of refinement, or high feeling,—I suppose 
one could find lots of names for it,—but I 
honestly can’t feel that, you know.” 


92 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


“ Oh,” said Barbara, “ I’m sure you will. 
When you are by yourself,—in the dark,— 
quite alone,—you—you will see how awful it 
has all been from first to last.” 

“ No,” returned Dering, “ I know I won’t. 
You had better make up your mind to that. 
If you’re disappointed in me, it’s no more 
than I am in myself.” 

“ And me,” said Barbara. 

“ In you ? Darling /” he breathed, tearing 
the fringe on the rather rickety old chair 
which held him, in the effort not again to 
touch her. “ How can you say such things to 
me ?” 

“ Oh, I haven’t said one-third that I ought, 
—that I mean to. You must be disappointed 
in me: you cannot help it. It’s—it’s almost 
a duty; yes, it’s a sacred duty. Disappointed 
in me! you must despise me !” 

“ That’s utter nonsense!” said Dering, in a 
matter-of-fact tone, which sounded as incon¬ 
gruously among the wailing harmonies of her 
self-reproachful voice as would a penny trum¬ 
pet among the andante ripples of the Moon¬ 
light Sonata. 

“ I'm glad you can look on it in that way,” 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD! 93 

answered Barbara, stiffly,—if one can be said 
to do anything stiffly when one is limply 
huddled against another’s knee. “ Yes, I— 
I am really glad of that,” she added, with less 
certainty. 

“ Why, of course it’s nonsense,” said Dering, 
stoutly. “ When you are alone in the dark 
you will see that.” All at once he succumbed 
to a sudden, sweeping passion. Alone in 
the dark,’ ” he repeated, leaning down his 
arms heavily upon her, and gathering the rich 
folds of her gown in his hands. “ Barbara, 
you need never be that again.” 

“ What ?” she said, huskily, longing to 
hear the words she knew he would utter 
in reply, and yet loathing herself for so 
longing. “ What ?” 

“ Alone in the dark,” said Dering, tensely ; 
and she felt his quick breath glow among the 
fibres of her hair as his lips brushed them in 
speaking. She cringed shivering beside him 
a moment longer, and then got to her feet and 
hurried away from him to a distant chair. 
When he followed her and bent over her, she 
shrunk down from him, putting up her open 
hands between them. 


94 THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 

“ It is what I must be forever,” she whis¬ 
pered, shakenly,— “ always, —always,— al¬ 
ways !” 

“ No,” said Dering. He took her protest¬ 
ing hands in his, and laid his lips first to one 
palm and then to the other. 

“ I tell you yes!” she said, passionately, 
her stormy bosom tossing some little diamond 
pins that she wore into iridescent sparkles,— 
“ yes, and yes, and yes!” 

Then she took his face into both hands for 
an instant, and held it near her own. 

We are both mad, I think,” she said. 

“Mad if we persist in calling simple joy 
madness.” 

“ I have no right to joy.” 

“But I have. Will you deny me that 
right ?” 

“ If it must come through me, yes.” 

“ It must come through you, and I say no.” 

“We are both very obstinate,” she said, in 
a tired voice. 

“ There you are perfectly correct,” an¬ 
swered Dering. 

“ But I will conquer.” 

“ There you are entirely wrong.” 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADf 95 

“Yes, wrong in everything. There you 
are right. Oh, do you suppose I do not suf¬ 
fer ?” she cried, with sudden bitterness. “ I 
have no words to tell you what I suffer.” 

“ Nor I,” he said. 

She rose, and stood for an instant unyield¬ 
ing in his embrace. 

“You are a man,” was her final reply. 
“ You have not the complex feelings that tear 
a woman. And you are responsible only to 
yourself. You have never—” she paused a 
moment, looking at him,—“ you have never 
been married. You do not know what it is to 
hear a dead voice ever in your ears, to feel 
always a dead hand claiming you. You do 
not know what it is to sin against the dead. 
The dead,” she repeated, glancing dreadingly 
about her. 

“ Barbara!” said Dering; but she escaped 
him. 

She rushed from him towards the half-open 
door, her stretched-forth arms repulsing him 
as he advanced. 

“ No, no ! never!” she whispered. “ There 
is a grave between us,—there is an open grave 
between us.” 


96 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


VIII. 

Dering did not seem to himself to walk 
back to the house at which he was stopping. 
He had that sensation of gliding along without 
volition, a foot or two above the ground, 
which we have all experienced in dreams, and 
his down-bent eyes were not conscious of the 
dreary glisten that the winter moon struck 
from the wet, dead leaves about his feet. 
There was of course no fire in his room when 
he reached it, and the cold was intense; but 
he undressed in the same species of stupor, 
only rousing for a moment when in trying to 
brush out his thick curls he discovered that 
the water into which he had plunged them 
had frozen. He then managed to kindle a 
small fire with some bits of light-wood and 
an old sporting gazette, kneeling down before 
the brief blaze, his discarded coat held by the 
sleeves about his neck in lieu of a dressing- 
gown. It was slow work, thawing that thick 
mass of heavily-curling locks, and he threw 
on more wood, still retaining his crouching 
posture. As the heat increased, he was con¬ 
scious of an elusive, subtle perfume, which 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 97 

escaped and returned as will a remembered 
face; and all at once he became aware of its 
origin. It was that exquisitely fresh fra¬ 
grance which sponges and some women share 
in common,—a smell of wild grasses and the 
sea,—of a woman’s hair daily washed,—in a 
word, of Barbara. For the few moments in 
which he had held her in his arms, her head 
had leaned against his breast. It was this 
delicate perfume of her hair which the fire 
was now drawing from the cloth of his coat. 

He rose and plunged into bed, giving a 
great, boyish shudder as the cold sheets settled 
down about him. His coat he had thrown 
from him, and he lay watching it now where 
it sprawled in a dark heap near the fire-lit 
hearth. He longed to experience again that 
faint, intoxicating odor, but something with¬ 
held him : it was like retaining some spiritual 
portion of her against her will, and Dering’s 
pride was only exceeded by his honesty. He 
was bewdldered as yet, and could form no 
distinct idea of his position in regard to her, 
though of one thing he was sure,—namely, 
that he had no right to think of her as a 
lover of his lady. Her morbid insistence 
8 


98 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

about the dead bad not at all affected bim, 
but slie bad repulsed his embrace, not yielded 
to it, and be would not in imagination take 
into his arms a woman who in reality refused 
to remain within them. He was a man of few 
but thorough creecte, and chief of these was a 
belief, consistently carried out, which ran to 
the effect that a man’s thoughts should be 
as respectful to a chaste woman as were his 
actions. He knew the power of perfume 
over the fancy, and he knew that self-control 
consists chiefly in retaining the bolt in its 
braces, not in slipping it out and then thrust¬ 
ing one’s arm in its place. He lay quite still, 
shivering violently and endeavoring to fix his 
mind on commonplace things. It occurred 
suddenly to him that he had not said his 
prayers, which he did with the same sweet, 
clean, boyish regularity with which he plunged 
daily into cold water. These prayers varied. 
They were sometimes very long, sometimes 
merely a word or two,—never prearranged, 
and having reference to anything that might 
come into his head: thus, for several nights 
past he had included an ailing Irish setter in 
his petitions. He was a being of vast and 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 99 

warm affections, and sometimes asked happi¬ 
ness for those whom he most loved, taking a 
certain pleasure in whispering their names 
into his locked palms. To-night his orisons 
ran as follows: “Dear God, make Jock a good 
boy, and bless my father and mother, and 
everybody. Amen.” Then he jumped into 
bed again, unconscious that he had repeated 
the very words of his childhood prayers, and 
seeing Barbara’s face advance and retreat on 
the waves of darkness, like a sea-tossed flower. 
He thrust out his arms with a fierce, vehe¬ 
ment gesture towards it, shutting his teeth 
until there was a sharp ringing in his ears, 
and whispering imperiously behind them, 
“ Love me ,—love me.” 

Barbara, in the mean while, had also un¬ 
dressed mechanically; that is, she had cast 
aside her gown, and unloosened her ridgy 
hair, letting the hair-pins fall one by one 
upon the carpet as she took them out. Then 
she drew the glittering lengths together with 
both hands, and stood staring at her reflec¬ 
tion in the glass. Presently a strange smile 
broke the stillness of her face. 

“ Um—we know each other,” she said, ad- 


100 THE quick or the dead? 

dressing lier mirrored self,—“ we know each 
other, you and I, but only we two. You 
really have a good face,—yes, really a good 
face,—yes, a pure face. It’s pure, I say. 
Look at your eyes,—such a clear, dark 
brown,—honest, deep, truthful,—real dog- 
eyes. And then your mouth’s very fine,— 
such little, deep, cool, high-bred corners. I 
like to look at you; yes, you’re very nice to 
look at, my good girl. Um—you smile so 
complacently, I don’t think I’ll pay you any 
more compliments. I think I will tell you 
what you really are,—what I see behind all 
that,—what your—husband sees! Oh, I 
know your name. You are called Barbara 
Pomfret,—Barbara Pomfret,—Barbara Pom- 
fret. Your husband’s name was Valentine 
Pomfret. You married Valentine Pomfret. 
He is dead, but his name is not dead: it is 
alive in you. Your name is Barbara Pom¬ 
fret.” She leaned forward here until her 
breath made a little triangular blur on the 
clear glass. “ There’s another name for you, 

too,” she said. “It is-Wanton!” The 

word seemed to stab her as though some one 
else had uttered it. 



THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 101 

“ O God!” she cried, falling to her knees, 
“ help me! Dear God, help me ! Hold me. 
Let him come to me, just a minute,—-just a 
minute: I’ll pay for it in any way ; I’ll be so 
patient afterwards. Yal, Val, come! Be 
disobedient, be blasphemous, be anything; 
only come to me one instant. You needn’t 
even spea^. Just let me see you,—you, 
your very self. 

“ Oh ! oh! I forgot! He would curse me ; 
he would ask you to curse me. I have dese¬ 
crated myself. Oh, if that kiss had only 
burned off my lips ! Oh, can’t I die? Won’t 
you let me die? Won’t you let me die? 
Ah, let me die! You won’t hear! If there 
was only some one to ask for me,—some one 
you loved. Oh, if Christ’s mother asks you, 
won’t you hear her ? Dear Mother of Christ, 
pray for me,—plead for me ! You have been 
a woman,—a woman like me !—like me!” 

She fell upon the floor and writhed and 
sobbed until the boards vibrated beneath her 
agonized movements. Her feverish breath 
envelo]3ed her face in a steam from her tear- 
drenched hair, as it had once before envel¬ 
oped it that evening, and her face and lips 

9 * 


102 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

were smarting and scalded by the hot drops 
ever gushing. In the midst of all this tor¬ 
ture, she put out one of her burning hands 
and began to stroke her own half-bare shoul¬ 
ders, with soothing, gentle movements. 

“ Oh, you poor thing,” she sobbed, stran¬ 
gling, “ if I could only comfort you !—if one 
could only comfort one’s self!” And then 
the horrible silent convulsions of despair and 
grief renewed themselves. 

It was not until a full hour had passed that 
she rose, or made any effort to compose her¬ 
self. At the length of that time, however, she 
kneeled up, and began gathering her soaked 
and tangled hair from about her face, to 
which a net-work of bright strands clung 
moistly. Her under lip was drawn against 
her teeth every now and then by a struggling 
breath, heavy with tears as a gust of summer 
wind with thick rain. These shuddering 
breaths recurred at regular intervals, and 
were as though she were trying to force her¬ 
self to swallow some noxious draught, while 
her throat ached as though she had been guil¬ 
lotined and was conscious of the wound. She 
got to her feet finally, swerved a moment, and 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADf 103 

stood erect, looking about her with a just-born 
resolve; then she moved to the fire, which had 
glowered down in crimson rifts among a crust 
of white wood-ashes, and spread out her hands 
to its glow, at the same time looking up to the 
shadowy ceiling. Her wretched face, glazed 
with tears, borrowed color from the rich coals, 
so that as she kneeled, staring upward, with 
large, distended eyes, she seemed like the 
Priestess of Fever presiding over her altar- 
fires. 

It was only a few moments, however, before 
she rose again, and passed from the warm room 
out into the dark and draughty hall without, 
where the watery moonlight fell in oblong 
shapes upon the floor of waxed oak. This 
bleak and waning light only served to confuse 
her, and, shutting her eyes, she felt her way 
with extended hands, until her palms came in 
contact with the carving on a chest to one side. 
Opening this chest, she filled her arms with 
some soft draperies, and returned to her room, 
locking the door after her. She lighted the 
small silver Pompeiian lamp that swung from 
the canopy-rail of her bed, and this wan 
radiance fell down in languid uncertainty upon 


104 THE quick or the head? 

the kneeling woman, and the mass of crushed 
white satin and lace with which her arms 
were filled. This mass she extended upon 
the silken coverlet, touching its folds into 
place with a soft and gentle reverence, and 
spreading above it the veil of delicate tulle. 
She then took from her throat the gold 
miniature-case which contained her husband’s 
likeness, and, opening it, laid it down upon 
the sheening folds before her. Next she de¬ 
liberately drew off her fur-lined dressing-gown 
and slippers. 

The fire was now a mere pale blur here 
and there in the dark chimney-place, and a 
cold, bitter and intense, pervaded the room, 
while outside the wind rose a little and then 
dropped abruptly like a thing too heavy for 
its wings. 

In the strong draught which passed from 
one loosely-hung door to the other, the silver 
lamp swung to and fro, changing the shadows 
in the satin folds underneath, and seeming to 
strike sparks from Barbara’s bending head. 

All night she kneeled there, clad only in 
her night-dress of thin cambric. The dreary 
winter sounds outside seemed not to disturb 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 105 

lier. Now one heard the clash of ice-coated 
twigs in the fitful gusts, now the crisp sound 
of some hoofed thing as it broke through the 
frost-rime matting the dead grass. Now a 
shutter clapped forward and then back again, 
startling the house-dog to dismal barkings, 
or an owl screamed its desolate tremolo, first 
close at hand, then flying farther off, as though 
to imitate an echo. 


IX. 

A whole week passed before he saw her 
again, and then it was only by accident. He 
had walked over to Rosemary as usual, and, 
on being told of Barbara’s absence, had de¬ 
cided to strike out across the fields on his 
homeward way, rather than take that monot¬ 
onous tramp along the frost-roughened roads. 
As he swung himself over the low gray fence 
at the back of the stables into the brown and 
neglected field beyond, he felt as though he 
were becoming part of some cleverly-executed 
water-color. The sweeps of ragged hill-side, 
undefined and vaguely dark in the winter 
twilight, seemed as though roughly washed 
in sepia, and their tall weeds bristled at top 


106 the quick OR THE DEADf 

against a wall of clear, chrome yellow ribbed 
with scarlet. 

The broad backs of some huddling sheep 
caught here and there a faded reflection, and 
the hurried tinkling of the bell on the neck 
of a homeward-driven cow broke the cold 
stillness. At the bottom of the field an ice- 
coated brook pursued its sluggish way, and 
Dering paused to break off some slivers of the 
ice and transfer them to his mouth, a boyish 
trick which he could never resist. As he stood 
erect, after accomplishing this somewhat slip¬ 
pery feat, he saw a tall figure about ten yards 
farther off, on the opposite side of the stream, 
motionless, beside a half-burned brush fire. 
The pale smoke-spiral curled slowly up be¬ 
yond, seeming to encircle her in its mystic 
whorl. 

In an instant he was beside her and had 
her hands in his. She caught her breath 
sharply, but made no exclamation, and they 
stood searching each other’s faces in the 
feathery light. 

He spoke first, excited and breathless: 
“ You—you? Why have you tried to hide 
from me? You cannot: it is useless. You 


THE QUICK OR TIIE DEADt 107 

see?” And he drew her towards him as 
he spoke; but she was as rigid and unyield¬ 
ing as a figure of iron: in truth her heavy 
black garments, seen in this reddish-gray 
light, resembled draperies of that sombre 
metal. 

“ Let my hands go! let my hands go!” 
she said to him. 

For answer he lifted first one and then the 
other to his lips. She felt their warm cling¬ 
ing through her thick gloves, but this rich 
sensation only served to fix her in her austere 
determination. 

“ I will not,” she said; and, drawing her¬ 
self haughtily away to the whole length of 
her long arms, she repeated, in a tone which 
she had caught from him, and behind her 
closed teeth, “ I will not” 

Words,—words,—words/” said Dering. 

He released her hands, took her in his 
arms, and crushed her to him by main force. 

“ You see?” he said, again. 

“ That is nothing. It is nothing, I tell 
you. You are a man, and your body is 
stronger than mine; but your will is not; no, 
your will is not.” 


108 THE quick OR THE DEADf 

“ You think so?” whispered Dering, with 
his lips against her ear. His breath streamed 
down her cheeks in among the black furs at 
her throat, thrilling her to the quick, and she 
began to pant frantically. 

“ You are cruel,” she said, repulsing him 
as best she could. “ All men are cruel. You 
are like the rest. You are cruel.” 

“ No,” replied Dering, “ it is not I who 
am cruel. It is you. You are cruel to 
yourself.” 

“ I want to be! I want to be!” 

“ You are cruel to yourself, but you are far 
crueller to me.” 

“ I must be. I must be punished through 
you.” 

“You must be punished through no one.”, 

“ I tell you I must. I have asked God to 
punish me. I asked him all one night on 
my knees, in the cold, with nothing on but 
my thin night-gown. You remember that 
night last week ,—that night? The ther¬ 
mometer went to zero. That was the night 
I asked him.” 

“ You are mad.” 

“ No, no, I’m not: I wish I were !” 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADf 109 

“ Perhaps it will help you to drive me mad ? 
Will it?” 

“ I said you were cruel. Oh, women could 
not say such things to—to those who—to those 
they cared for.” 

“ Well, never mind, then. I don’t suppose 
either of us know exactly what we are saying. 
Look here: you’re not near warmly enough 
dressed.” 

“ I have on fur,” she said, putting her hand 
to her throat with a certain guilty timidity. 

“ Um—yes, a little strip around your neck,” 
replied Dering, unconvinced. “ But this jacket 
is the same one you used to wear all those 
warm October days. You see I remember.” 

“ I am warm enough,” she answered, through 
chattering teeth. 

“ Oh, if you insist, certainly,” he said. 
Then there fell a silence between them. 

“ How pretty that is!” she ventured at last, 
disturbing the brush-ashes with the toe of her 
boot. The coals glared in red strips through 
the delicate white rime, like the core of some 
flaming fruit through its outer husk; here 
and there little wavering corkscrew films 
went melting upward. 

10 


110 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 


“Very pretty,” muttered Dering, absently 
All at once be whirled about, and caught her 
again in his arms. “ Here,” he said, “ tell 
me the truth here,—breast to breast, heart to 
heart, life to life. I know that morbid thought 
that haunts you. Put it away. Do you hear ? 
I command you. I am your lover. You hear ? 
I command you to stop thinking those awful 
ghoulish thoughts. No, don’t struggle,—please 
don’t. Dear,—so dear,—let me tell you what 
I found last night in my prayer-book. It’s 
one I’m awfully fond of: my favorite sister 
gave it to me,—the lame one, you know, who 
died. I was thinking about her, and how she 
used to help me and love me, and I felt as 
though she were telling me where to turn, and* 
then I put my finger on these words: 4 The 
living—the living shall liaise thee, O Lord.’ 
There, darling, that’s it ,— 4 The living .’ Don’t 
you see? Why, it was just like a message,— 
just like a word from God himself. 4 The 
living ,’ Barbara ,— 4 the living /’ ” 

44 Have pity!” she cried, hoarsely, clinging 
to him. 44 Mercy ! have mercy !” 

There were great, scalding tears in his eyes. 
44 Oh, darling,” he said, 44 you ask me that ? 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? m 

—when you haven’t any mercy on yourself? 
Oh, you poor darling! For heaven’s sake, 
Barbara, look on this thing rationally, hu¬ 
manly, as we were meant to look on such 
things. Why, darling, think of it! he is 
not your husband now: he’s a spirit,—an 
essence; no more than that smoke curling 
up at our feet. There ! there! I’m a clumsy 
brute. Oh, I wish to God God would help 
me!” 

Neither of these frantic creatures caught, 
in this despairing appeal, that touch of humor 
which grief, in certain moments of necessity, 
will invariably borrow from mirth. They 
grasped each other, trembling violently, and 
feeling the earth wave beneath their feet like 
a shaken carpet. 

Dering was the first to speak. 

“ Don’t cry like that,” he urged. “ I can’t 
stand it; I simply can’t stand it. Darling, 
you will drive us both crazy ! Oh, why can’t 
you see it all as clearly and blessedly as I 
can? Barbara, it was meant to be; it was, 
darling, I know it was. Look here: I didn’t 
mean to come to Virginia this autumn : I was 
going to Canada with a friend of mine; and 


112 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

he fell through a trap at a theatre and got 
awfully hurt, and so of course we couldn’t go. 
And then—look here, dear, please listen,— 
please don’t cry like that. Look: this will 
seem funny to you,—it’s got a ghastly sort 
of fun in it,—but I had taken a dislike to 
you without seeing you. Honestly, dearest, I 
had. I made Va—I mean I made some one 
awfully angry once by telling them I thought 
your photograph looked coarse. Think of 
it! I said I thought you looked coarse! My 
darling,—darling,— darling! 

She shuddered afresh, pressing closer to 
him, and at the same time urging him from 
her. 

“ It’s what I am,” she muttered, brokenly. 

“What is?” demanded Dering, startled, 
then, as her meaning flashed on him, violently 
indignant. “You seem to take a sort of de¬ 
light in saying that sort of thing to me,” he 
cried. “You know it’s false. You know 
the very idea’s ridiculous. You know I only 
told you because I thought it might take you 
out of yourself, it was so perfectly ridiculous. 
Barbara! stop crying.” 

“Oh, let me!—let me!” she whispered, 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 113 

with a beseeching movement of her whole 
figure. 

“ Why, certainly, if it comforts you, my 
poor dear,” he said, stroking all of her hair 
that he could reach beneath her close hat. 
To this she replied by a wail of absolute 
despair. 

“ Nothing will ever comfort me again,” she 
cried; “ and if it could I ought not to want 
it to.” 

“ My own girl, I wish I could make you 
see how morbid you are.” 

“ How can you call it morbidness ?” she 
said, suddenly releasing herself. “ Suppose 
you—had — been—my—husband. W ould 
you want me to forget ?” 

He noticed the same apprehensive, back¬ 
ward glance that followed any mention of her 
husband. It touched him with a horrified 
and gushing tenderness, and he spoke under 
its warm impulse. He took both her hands, 
crossing one above the other, and pressing 
them convincingly between his own as he 
talked. “ Listen: let me tell you how I 
would have felt,” he said. “ I would have 
felt that anything, anything which could add 
10* 


114 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

to your happiness while on earth would have 
my blessing. Any true, honest, unselfish 
man would feel so. I’m sure that it’s just 
the way he felt.” 

He was astonished at the stricken cry 
which broke from her, as she tore her hands 
away and faced him with tumultuous bosom. 

“ Then you don’t love me!” she cried. 
“ You don’t know what love is. You could 
never say that if you really loved me. It’s 
hideous. You would never understand. Oh, 
it makes me wild to see how calmly you stand 
there ! You don’t know. Men never know. 
They never really suffer. They get over 
things so.^ Their memories are like—like 
photographs,—they fade out so. Women’s 
memories are like statues : you may break 
them in pieces, you may leave them out in 
storms until they are all discolored, you can 
always put them together again. No matter 
how stained they are, they always retain their 
shape. It is our greatest curse. Yes, it is a 
curse upon us. We can’t forget! we can’t 
forget!” 

She threw herself forward on her knees 
among the thick, tangled grasses, and took 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 115 

her face into her desolate-looking, black- 
gloved hands. Dering stood staring down 
upon her, helpless, almost hopeless. 

“ There’s nothing I can say,” he ventured 
at last, in a broken voice. 

“ No, there’s nothing,—there’s nothing,” 
she said. “ If I could forget, there might be 
something. It’s that awful distinct recollec¬ 
tion that I have of everything. Why, I can 
see him now,—I can hear him. I can see 
him lighting his cigar, coming home in the 
dusk. I can see the very streaks of light on 
his hat-brim and between his fingers, and the 
dead golden-rod stalks looking all pinched 
and gray about our feet. I can hear him say, 
‘ Look out! there s a man-trap !’ as he caught 
his foot in a tangle of grass. I can see the 
way he used to go about looking for a com¬ 
fortable chair, with his cigar in one hand, 
and a book folded over his forefinger. I can 
see him making tea for me when I was ill, and 
burning his fingers, and dancing about with 
pain—ha! ha! ha ! He was so absurd some¬ 
times ! Oh, Val! Val!” she ended, with a 
perfect shriek of desolation. * 

Dering felt as though she had thrust her 


116 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

hand into his breast and was twisting his 
heart-strings about with her strong, supple 
fingers, as he had seen her twist the grey¬ 
hound puppies’ ears. At that moment noth¬ 
ing appeared of much consequence. He 
thought mechanically that he would go out 
shooting to-morrow, and wondered if the 
Irish setter would have recovered sufficiently 
to accompany him. 

Suddenly she stretched up to him two 
feeble, appealing hands. “ Let us go home,” 
she said, wearily. “ I am so tired. I feel so 
ill.” 

He put a gentle arm about her, and she 
leaned heavily against him as they passed on 
through the overgrown field, the wild-rose 
brambles catching against her sorrowful skirts 
and pulling them backward every moment or 
so. It was too dark to distinguish anything 
save the gaunt net-work of the trees against 
the lowering sky, and the dark jutting of the 
stable-roof and the tall chimneys of Rose¬ 
mary. 

X. 

Barbara, who lay awake nearly all of that 
night, had been sleeping restlessly for about 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 117 

an hour, when Rameses awakened her. Her 
method of rousing her mistress was somewhat 
unique, and consisted in kneeling down by 
the bed and keeping her large, circular eyes 
upon those of Barbara. On this occasion she 
had prefaced this performance by propping an 
envelope against the pillow, and as her mis¬ 
tress awoke she pushed, it towards her with 
one slender brown finger. 

“ What is it ? A letter ? Is it time for 
the post? Have I slept so late?” asked 
Barbara, hurriedly. Then she saw that there 
was no stamp on the envelope, and recognized 
Dering’s handwriting. 

“ Open the closet door a little,” she said, 
and, leaning on her elbows among the tum¬ 
bled bedclothes, she read the note in the 
chink of light admitted through the window 
of the closet. Its contents were brief, and 
ran as follows: 

“I am going to New York on the first 
afternoon train. I will not come to Rose¬ 
mary again, to torture and worry you. I 
understand perfectly. Never think that I 
misjudge you. Could you scratch me just a 


118 THE QUICK OR THE HEAD? 

word or two to take with me ? Or send me a 
marked book,—one that you have marked, 
of course. If you need me or want to see 
me at any time, you have only to telegraph 
Manhattan Club. I will send you my ad¬ 
dress if I go abroad. I am afraid this is 
an unearthly hour to rout you up, but I have 
to leave on a very early train to make con¬ 
nection at Charlottesville, and I feel selfish 
enough to put you to a little inconvenience 
when I think of those awful hours of waiting 
in that village, and how a note or book from 
you would help me out. 

“ Yours, 

“J. D.” 

Barbara put back her tangled hair, and 
looked up at Bameses out of eyes heavy with 
tears and sleep. 

“ Who brought this ? Is he waiting ?” she 
demanded. 

“ Yease’m, he’s a-waitin’. ’Tis Unc’ Jim’s 
boy Granville.” 

“ Well, then, give me some paper, and a 
pencil, and a book to write on.” 

She wrote the following note, still lying 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 119 

down in bed, and leaning first to one side and 
then the other, as her arms began to tingle 
numbly with the strain : 

“ If you would like, come over at two 
o’clock and I can drive you to Charlottesville 
in time for the 6.30 Express, and then you 
won’t have any waiting to do. If not, write 
me again, and I will send the book you wish 
to the station. I thank you with all my (she 
had written “ heart,” then scratched it out 
elaborately and put a very distinct “ power” 
after it) power for your kindness to me always. 

“ Barbara.” 

The signature also showed signs of fluctu¬ 
ation. It had first been “ Yours ever, B. B. 
P.,” then “ As ever,” then merely “ B.,” and 
finally a rather infinitesimal “ Barbara,”—as 
though she were trying to express a whisper 
in writing by the smallness of her chirogra- 

phy- 

The reply to this missive came shortly,—a 
telegraphic formula of ten words: 

“ Will be at Rosemary 2 sharp. You are 
so good. J.” 


120 the quick or the dead? 

When Rameses had prepared her bath, and 
thrown wide all four of the large windows, 
Barbara saw that it was raining gently but 
constantly. The whole lawn had a sodden, 
unkempt appearance, and some plough-horses 
that had strayed into the enclosure glistened 
dismally. The roads would be in a fright¬ 
ful state, and she thought with a palpable 
shudder of her long, dreary, companionless 
homeward drive that evening. She decided 
that she would not trust herself to be her 
own charioteer on such a gloomy night, and 
had recourse to the heretofore despised 
“ carry-air’ and “ Unc’ Joshua.” 

Dering was punctual to the second, and 
they set off at ten minutes past two, half 
smothered in the fur carriage-robes with 
which Miss Fridiswig had heaped them. 

It was still raining as they drove out upon 
the high-road, but with less steadiness, and 
the mists upon the hills, which were of a 
dark, soaked purple, had lifted, and hung in 
dissolving wreaths here and there above the 
rich slopes. Beauregard Walsingham rode 
behind to open gates, and Unc’ Joshua had 
the front seat of the carry-all to himself, 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 121 

slipping about at particularly uneven bits in 
tlie road, with a creaking sound of damp 
leather. This carriage was perhaps twenty 
years old, and rattled in more places than one 
could imagine it possible for a vehicle of any 
description to rattle,—filling up the gaps in 
Dering’s and Barbara’s somewhat spasmodic 
conversation, as Feuillet says the noise of 
Paris fills up the gaps in a Parisian’s life. 

He had told her perhaps ten times of her 
goodness in driving with him to Charlottes¬ 
ville, for the same number of times she had 
replied that it was only a pleasure, and they 
had admired in every variety of language 
every variety of tone in the dense gray air 
about them, when he turned abruptly to her. 

“ How I will miss you!” he said, in a 
strangled voice, and then twice, back of his 
teeth, in that way he had, and speaking in 
French for fear of Unc’ Joshua, “ Je t’aime! 
—-je t’aime /” 

“ No, no,” she whispered, bracing herself 
away from him by means of her hand against 
his knee under the fur robes. He drew off 
his gloves and held it there, his pulses throb¬ 
bing riotously, his eyes on hers. 

11 


122 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


“ Don’t look at me,” she said, with some 
confusion. “ It is so light.” 

“I believe I could see your eyes in the 
dark, like a tiger’s.” 

“ Don’t talk so loud. He hears every word. 
They understand a great deal more than you 
think. Oh, what a wonderful tone of red 
that field is! Why, it has a bloom on it like 
a grape.” 

“ Yes,—lovely, lovely. Leave your hand 
there, please.” 

“ I never—really, I never dreamed of such 
a color. And, oh, that broom-field beyond, 
with the dark patches! And the belt of 
black woods! Oh !” 

“ Yes, and that ragged blue line beyond. 
What is that? Is it the BlueBidge? No, 
don’t take it away,—not yet.” 

“ Yes, that’s the Blue Bidge. I wish we 
could see it from Bosemary. But you should 
drive through all this in June.” 

“Well, why shouldn’t I? I mean to. 
Look: I have something to ask you. It 
isn’t much. Look: I just want to take off 
your glove. May I ?” 

“No,” she said, drawing short, difficult 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 123 

breaths: “ no. How can you talk to me like 
that ?” 

“ Good heavens ! how am I to talk to you ? 
You should have let me go as I meant to. 
Why did you propose to drive me to Char¬ 
lottesville? You knew how it would be- 

No, I don’t mean that. Forgive me. But 
you must know that I can’t be near you with¬ 
out telling you how I feel to you. You must 
know that. Did you expect me to drive all 
these miles like a stock or a stone ? I’m afraid 
that’s not as original as it might be, eh ? But 
look : let me take your glove off?” 

In reply she drew her hand decidedly out 
of his, and buried it in her lap. Her face was 
turned from him so that he got a mere sugges¬ 
tion of her profile, but he saw that she was 
blushing desperately. 

“ I bother you so,” he said, with regret. 

“ No, it isn’t that. Oh, what a water-color 
study that man would make!” 

“ Excellent,” admitted Dering. The man 
in question was a young negro of strapping 
figure, to which his blue jeans shirt and trou¬ 
sers had modelled themselves accurately. On 
his head was a moth-eaten sealskin cap of a 



124 THE QUICK OR TIIE DEAD? 

delicious mingled brown. His hands, one of 
which was bandaged with dirty white cotton, 
were clasped behind his throat, and he carried 
his gun through his bended arms. 

On his trousers a brace of just-shot hares, 
dangling to and fro, had left a moist crimson 
stain. It was the highest note of color in 
this study of faded blues and browns, the 
cotton bandage and the breasts and tails of 
the poor “ molly-cottons” being the only high 
lights, so to speak. 

“ Isn’t he like one of what’s-his-name’s 
aquarelles ? Look, now ! there, as he comes 
out against that dull-yellowish field,—there, 

with that patchy gray sky above- Oh, I 

wish I could paint,—with my hands, I mean : 
I am always painting pictures to myself with 
my fancy.” 

“So am I,” said Dering. She colored 
deeply again, and seemed to have caught the 
button of her glove in the fur robe. 

“Let me help you,” he suggested, and, 
having done so, kept her hand in his. She 
had not time to withdraw it before they were 
aware from “ Unc’ Joshua’s” back that some¬ 
thing unusual was going on in the road 



THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


125 


beyond. There is nothing more expressive 
than a negro coachman’s back, not even the 
eyes of a hungry dog. Apprehension was 
written in the hunched curve of “Unc’ 
Joshua’s” vertebrae and the outward crook 
of his bowed arms. He half rose, still curi¬ 
ously contorted, and peered from side to side 
between his horse’s ears. 

“ What’s up? Sit down. What’s the 
matter?” said Dering, who was sometimes 
exasperated by the theatrical gymnastics of 
would-be-impressive darkies. “ Come, what’s 
all this about ?” he demanded again. 

“Suppn’s done broke down in de road, 
suh,” replied Unc’ Joshua, still curving and 
peering,—“ a wagon or suppn’.” 

Dering stood up also. 

“ What is it?” said Barbara, a little ner¬ 
vously. 

“ I sees ! I sees!” now cried Unc’ Joshua: 
“ ’tis one uh dem young Buzzies. He cyart 
done broke down, — right ’crost de road, 
too.” 

“ One of the Buzzies!” cried Barbara, in 
dismay. “ Good gracious! we will have to 
pick him up if his trap’s broken. It’s too 
11* 


126 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

bad! Look again, Uncle Joshua. Are you 
sure his wagon’s broken ? Perhaps the har¬ 
ness is just tangled.” 

“ Norm,” said the old black, positively, 
“ dey ain’ nuttin’ twangled dar. Tis bust all 
tuh scrakshuns” (anglice unknown). 

“ I suppose this is young Buzzy coming 
here now,” said Dering, in a surly tone. 
“ What a name !—Buzzy /” 

“ It isn’t near as bad as the man,” said 
Barbara, gloomily. 

Young Buzzy here appeared at the side of 
the carry-all and thrust out a lank hand, ex¬ 
posing a frayed red-flannel undershirt-sleeve 
in the vehemence of his gesture. 

“ Howdy ?” he said, including them both 
in this concise greeting. “ Howdy, Unc’ 
Joshua?” he added. 

Unc’ Joshua removed his battered silk hat, 
with an elaborate shifting of lines and whip 
from one hand to the other. 

“ Mornin’, suit,” he said,— a mornin’, morn- 
in’.” 

“ I cert’n’y am lucky,” pursued Mr. Buzzy, 
again addressing Barbara and Dering. “I 
wuzn’t bawn with a caul for nothin’. Hyah! 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 127 

hyah! Ever read David Copperfield, Mr.- 

Excuse me, but are you Mr. George Pomfret?” 

“ No; my name’s Dering,” replied the ad¬ 
dressed, whose manner was perfectly cour¬ 
teous, if somewhat frost-bitten. Barbara was 
nibbling her inner lip fiercely and trying to 
look as usual. 

“ Can’t we help you ?” pursued Dering. 
“ You seem to have come to grief.” 

“ Come to grief!” echoed the other. “ Well, 
it’s more like grief had come to me. Hyah ! 
hyah !” And he laughed again, producing a 
sound like that made by a stick drawn rap¬ 
idly along an iron railing. This laugh jarred 
so on Dering that he felt as though he would 
like to loosen his skin and jump out of it: as 
the next best thing, he jumped out of the 
carry-all and made his way to the wreck of 
Mr. Buzzy’s trap. That gentleman followed 
shortly, standing resignedly by while Dering 
inspected the chaos of wine-sap apples, pota¬ 
toes, and bundles of fodder which were heaped 
up about the body of the broken wagon. Its 
owner ventured no explanation, but remained 
passive, holding a hairy wrist in either hand, 
and rubbing his thumbs about on his arms 



128 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

underneath his red-flannel shirt-sleeves. He 
was otherwise attired in a suit of snuff-brown 
stripes alternating with black, wore a soft 
gray felt hat, and a red satin tie with green 
bars across it. 

His face was of a shiny fairness, deepening 
to a mottled plum-color on his cheeks and the 
bridge of his nose, and his eyebrows, which he 
continually rubbed the wrong way with one 
of those restless thumbs, were of a pale straw- 
color, over eyes which matched the tint upon 
his cheeks. He had lost a tooth directly in 
front, and could not keep his tongue from in¬ 
cessantly playing in and out of this unpleasing 
hollow. Dering felt a great loathing swell 
his throat, and as Buzzy sidled nearer over 
the soggy ground, his perfume of damp cloth, 
hair-oil, and stable did not mitigate this sen¬ 
timent. Was it possible that he and Bar¬ 
bara would have to drive the rest of the way 
to Charlottesville behind that reeking per¬ 
sonality ? 

“ I suppose the old nigger and you and I 
couldn’t patch it up between us?” he sug¬ 
gested at last, but rather doubtfully. 

“Not ’less we could work meracles,” re- 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


129 


plied young Buzzy. “No, that wagon’s a 
goner.” 

“ I’m afraid it is,” said Dering. 

“ It cert’n’y is,” affirmed its owner. 

XI. 

Dering remained silent after Buzzy’s last 
remark. He could not bring himself to make 
any suggestion concerning a more practical 
species of aid,—namely, the transference of 
Buzzy and his goods and chattels to their 
vehicle. They walked back to the carry-all 
in silence. 

“ Can you do anything about it ?” said 
Barbara. 

“ I’m afraid not,” replied Dering, sadly. 

Barbara was also silent, struggling with the 
same distaste which had tied Dering’s tongue. 
Young Buzzy kept a steady and resigned gaze 
upon the wagon, still thumbing his lean arms. 
Finally Barbara said, with a sort of burst,— 

“ Can’t we give you a lift ?” 

“I wuz thinkin’ ’bout that,” replied the 
unfortunate. “ I cert’n’y would be ub- 
bliged.” 


130 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


“What will you do with your horse?” 
here suggested Dering, with a sudden hope. 

Mr. Buzzy was quite prepared for this 
emergency. “ I’ll give the little darky some¬ 
thin’ tuli lead him,” he replied, adding, with 
a kind of tilt in Barbara’s direction, “ With 
your permission, uv co’se.” 

“ Why, certainly,” she answered. 

He went off to attend to this little trans¬ 
action, and Barbara and Dering clutched 
each other’s hands with a simultaneous move¬ 
ment. 

“Will we have to take him all the. way?” 
said Dering, almost tearfully. 

“I’m afraid so,” said Barbara, who was 
entirely tearful. 

There was a lump in her throat that made 
her feel as though she had swallowed a hot 
hard-boiled egg, shell and all, and it had 
stuck just below the root of her tongue. 
Their hands tightened, they cast a desperate 
glance about: young Buzzy was again ap¬ 
proaching them. 

“It’s damnable!” said Dering, with per¬ 
haps pardonable violence,—especially as he 
apologized immediately afterwards. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


131 


“ No, don’t apologize,” urged Barbara, 
hurriedly. “ I say it’s—it’s 6 damnable’ too!” 

They burst out laughing just as Buzzy 
came up. 

“We were laughing at my poor little fol¬ 
lower’s evident fright about leading your 
horse,” explained Barbara, with suave men¬ 
dacity. 

“ He is right steered,” Mr. Buzzy ad¬ 
mitted, “ but he’ll git over it. ‘ Jinks’ always 
balks at firs’,— 4 Jinks’ my hawse, yuh know. 
It’s mighty kind in you to give me a lif’. 
Miss Barb—I mean Missis Pomfret. Excuse 
me, but that ‘ Missis’ business always sticks 
in my throat when I look at you. You 
don’t look a day older’n you did when we 
boys an’ girls used tuh dress the church for 
Chris’mus-” 

“ I don’t want to hurry you, Mr. Buzzy,” 
here interpolated Dering, “ but Mrs. Pom¬ 
fret is kindly driving me to Charlottesville 
to catch the 6.30 train, and I wouldn’t like 
to miss it.” 

“ Cert’n’y—cert’n’y,” said Mr. Buzzy, who 
still hesitated, however. He sidled towards 
Unc’ Joshua and took him into his confi- 



132 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

deuce in an undertone. “ Say, Unc’ Joshua,” 
— it was thus that he expressed himself,— 
“’s there any room fur them pertaters ’n’ 
wine-saps onder the seat or anywhere ? It’ll 
mean a drink in Charlottesville, yuh know.” 

While he and Unc’ Joshua arranged this 
matter, Barbara and Dering again devoured 
one another’s rebellious faces with hungry 
eyes. All at once Dering stooped and pre¬ 
tended to be arranging something on the floor 
of the carry-all. In truth he was pressing 
his lips rapidly, first against Barbara’s gown, 
and then against the curve of her instep. 

“ Oh, don’t! don’t!” she urged, in a vehe¬ 
ment whisper. “My horrid boot! Oh, don’t! 
—Please !” 

He lifted his head, a little flushed, and 
looked at her with a certain brilliancy, as of 
one who has been drinking wine. At the 
same moment Mr. Buzzy came around to the 
other side of the carriage. 

“ If you’ll excuse me ,” he remarked, “ I’ll 
git one ur two pa’cels ’fore we start.” 

“Certainly,” replied Barbara again, and 
again Mr. Buzzy went off in the direction of 
his wagon. He, his wine-saps and potatoes, 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 133 

being safely stowed away, they started towards 
Charlottesville, stopped every now and then 
by young Walsingham’s appeals for help re¬ 
garding the recreant Jinks, who, as his master 
had said, balked sometimes. Buzzy himself 
was inclined to be talkative, and told various 
anecdotes, including Unc’ Joshua in the con¬ 
versation, with great geniality. 

“Name of a dog,” exclaimed Dering, in 
French, “ this is atrocious !” 

“ Name of a blue pig, it is !” replied Bar¬ 
bara, gravely. They laughed again. 

“ Yo’re laughin’ reminds me,” said Mr. 
Buzzy, “ of a story my ole Unc’ Nelson Cun- 
nin’ham use’ter tell.” And forthwith they 
were regaled with one of the extremely long 
anecdotes of Mr. Nelson Cunningham. 

“ Please put your hand on my knee again, 
—-just once,” urged Dering, under cover of 
the boisterous hilarity which his own anec¬ 
dotal powers had called forth in Mr. Buzzy. 
“ I won’t touch it if you tell me not to.” He 
waited anxiously, and was presently rewarded 
by a soft clasp upon his knee, which sent such 
a delightful thrill through him that he actually 
smiled in response to Mr. Buzzy’s toothy grin. 

12 


134 THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 

“ That's wliat I call a first-rater,” announced 
the latter, appealing afterwards to Unc’ 
Joshua. “ What you think, Unc’ Joshua?” 

“ Fus’-rate, suh,—fus’-rate!” 

“ Hyah ! hyah ! Unc' Joshua, you know a 
good story when you hear one—eh ?” 

“ Yes, suh ! Hyah! hyah!” 

“ Br-r-r! I wish we could walk the rest 
of the way!” said Dering, in overwhelming 
disgust. 

“ It is dreadful,” admitted Barbara. “ But 
here’s the Long Bridge. We .are nearly 
there.” 

“ What a lovely country it is!” breathed 
Dering, leaning far out to have a glimpse of 
the pretty hills that hug Charlottesville, be¬ 
fore they were en-tunnelled by the Long 
Bridge. “ I am never so glad that I am a 
Southerner as when I drive near Charlottes¬ 
ville on a day like this.” 

“Or when you think that a few like Mr. 
B. are your compatriots,” suggested Barbara, 
who was so bitterly unhappy that she felt 
like indulging in wild laughter. As the 
rumble of the Long Bridge drowned their 
voices, they could talk more unrestrainedly. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 135 

“ You were so good to come,” said Dering, 
to whom the novelty of the idea made this 
remark seem ever novel. 

“I wanted to come,” answered Barbara, 
who found no monotony in this reply. 

“ And you will telegraph if you need me,— 
or—or—anything ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Promise.” 

“ Well.” 

“ Say you promise.” 

“ I promise.” 

He got his arm around her: for an instant 
she breathed difficultly against his side; then 
they rolled out again into the faded daylight. 

“ My Unc’ Nelson Cunnin’ham use’ter say 
he had eyes in the skin of his back, like a 
pertater, when he sat befo’ two young folks 
goin’ thoo’ a tunnel,” remarked Mr. Buzzy, 
jovially, as the horses struck out again into a 
round trot. “ Hyah! hyah !” 

“ Hyah ! hyah !” chuckled Unc’ Joshua. 

“ Beast! I’d like to choke him!” ejaculated 
Dering between his teeth. 

“I wish you would,” said Barbara, who 
was of a lively flame-color. 


136 THE QUICK OR THE DEADf 

“You don’t seem to perriciate my re¬ 
marks?” here put in Mr. Buzzy, to whom 
this twisting of words constituted a form of 
humor. 

“I don’t think we were listening at the 
time of your last observation,” said Dering, 
grimly. 

“ I said my Unc’ Nel-” 

“ Good gracious ! is the Bivanna always so 
swollen at this time of the year ?” asked Bar¬ 
bara, looking out.” 

“ Pen’s on th’ rains. I said my Unc’-” 

“ The rains ? But then it always rains a 
good deal in November, doesn’t it ?” 

“Well, right smart, gen’lly. Unc’ Nelson 
said-” 

“ Oh, yes, I remember now, of course. I 
wonder if any one could swim the Bivanna ?” 

“ I done it, lars’ summer,” announced 
Buzzy, with an impressive seriousness. He 
twisted about, hanging both arms over the 
back of the seat, and looking down at that 
lazy river as though he expected from it some 
sign of recognition. 

“ You must be a very good swimmer.” 

“Tolabul. Torm Cunnin’ham—my Unc’ 





THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 137 

Nelson Cunnin’ham’s boy—kin outswim me, 
though. That boy kin swim /— You know 
him, Unc’ Joshua?” 

“ Sut’.n’y, suh,—sut’n’y, sut’n’y. Marse 
Torm kin swim /” 

“You mils’ remember him, Miss Ba— 
excuse me, Missis Pomfret,—don’t you ?” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Barbara, vaguely. It was 
a species of utter, apathetic misery that had 
seized her. They had now entered Charlottes¬ 
ville, and the drenched, forsaken village 
streets were beginning to depress her unutter¬ 
ably. 

“ Drive us a little way up Park Street, 
Uncle Joshua,” she said, and leaned back, 
looking silently about, as they rolled along 
this charming avenue, which is not unlike 
Lovers’ Lane in Newport. 

It would be hard to decide which was most 
miserable, Barbara or Dering. Buzzy’s pres¬ 
ence thrust into their tete-a-tete was some¬ 
thing as when a New-Orleans masker during 
Mardi-Gras shoves his grotesque self between 
two lovers about to embrace. Their words 
choked them, and they not only saw the 
actual Buzzy, but had exasperating visions 
12 * 


138 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

of brother and sister Buzzies, with his home 
in the background,—a borne whose white¬ 
washed walls bore many excrescences in the 
shape of old photographs framed in round 
walnut frames, whose square piano was cov¬ 
ered with a red-and-black-stamped woollen 
cover, whose sofa was of green reps disgorging 
black liorse-hair, and whose hall was carpeted 
with oil-cloth and strewn with round rush 
mats. Besides, it was impossible to get rid 
of him: he had at once announced his inten¬ 
tion of “ sticking by them,” to see Dering off, 
and to provide for Barbara when he should 
be gone: so they drove to the station still 
with Buzzy on the box-seat. Barbara, who 
had a nervous and uncontrollable terror of 
locomotives, grasped Dering’s hand uncere¬ 
moniously as they neared the net-work of 
tracks. 

“ Hyah ! liyali!” whispered Buzzy, whose 
shoulders they saw move hilariously. 

“ Hyah! hyah!” echoed Unc’ Joshua, 
huskily. 

They got out of the carry-all in a dumb 
but violent passion, and walked together to 
the waiting-room. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 139 

This waiting-room was big and airy, and 
when they entered there was no one else in 
possession. Mr. Buzzy officiously darted off 
to see after Dering’s luggage, and they were 
at last free to indulge in conversation without 
an audience. Unfortunately, all the tumult¬ 
uous ideas which had clamored for vent in 
the carry-all seemed now to have followed 
hot on the heels of the vanished Buzzy. 

“ I wonder if that clock’s right ?” ventured 
Dering. 

“ Oh, of course,” said Barbara. “ They 
wouldn’t dare have it wrong.” 

“ No, I suppose not,” he admitted. “ Then 
I’ve got three-quarters of an hour.” 

“ A little more than that. Suppose we sit 
down ?” 

“ Good Lord! what an oaf I am ! You 
must be tired to death.” 

They sat down, after Dering had made an 
elaborate arrangement of his satchel and 
overcoat. 

“ Thirty-nine minutes now,” said Barbara. 
“ Does a waiting-room depress you as it does 
me ?” 

“ I don’t think anything could be worse.” 


140 THE quick or the dead? 

“ I almost wish I hadn’t come.” 

“Don’t say that!” He slipped his hand 
through the hollow arm of the seat, and took 
surreptitious possession of her now ungloved 
fingers. 

“ Mind,” she whispered, “ the ticket-agent 
is just opposite.” 

“ Disgusting!” murmured Dering. They 
were silent for a second or two, at the end of 
which time he took a small object from his 
pocket and laid it in her lap. 

“ I want you to keep that,” he said. “ It’s 
—it’s the prayer-book I was telling you of,— 
the one, you know, I found that in,—about 
the ‘living,’ you know. Don’t shrink, dar¬ 
ling.” 

She turned to him with a sudden, wild 
movement that caused the little volume to slip 
on the floor at her feet. “ Oh, I am so un¬ 
happy ! I am so unhappy!” she said, giving 
him her clinched hands, and withdrawing 
them as suddenly. Both stooped together to 
lift the fallen prayer-book. 

“Perhaps this will help you. You won’t 
let me help you,” he said, despairingly. She 
sank back between the iron arms of her chair, 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 141 

holding the book against her breast, and 
moving her lips slightly as though in prayer. 
Dering bent down his head near her. 

“Say something for me,” he whispered, 
sliakenly. 

“ I am ; I am. It’s what I’m doing.” 

“God keep you, my pure one, my true 
one!” 

“Well, ef you two knew the trouble I’d 
had checkin’ yo’ thousand-and-one trunks, 
suk, you’d take up a subscription for me right 
here in this station-house!” ejaculated at this 
juncture the voice of Mr. Buzzy. 

Dering looked up at him from under his 
lowered brows with a quietly murderous ex¬ 
pression ; Barbara, bending over, pretended 
to be tying her shoe. 

“ How many of them cur’ous boxes have 
you got, anyhow ?” pursued the young gen¬ 
tleman, entirely unconscious. He wiped his 
whole face and the spaces behind his fat ears 
with a large purple-and-white silk handker¬ 
chief, regarding the fabric afterwards intently, 
and then crumpling it into his hat, which he 
replaced on his head. “ Why don’ chu char¬ 
ter a cyar V chuck yore things in that? 


142 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


’T’ould be a heap less trouble. Well, here 
yo’ checks.’’ 

“Thanks,” said Dering, pocketing them. 
“ I’m sorry you had so mucli trouble.” 

“ Oh, ’twa’n’t any reel trouble,” replied 
Buzzy, genially. “ I was jes’ gassin’. Look 
liyuh: wouldn’t you like somethin’ tuh eat ? 
—both o’ you ? They’ve got a reel nice 
resterrant hyuh.” 

“ Nothing,—nothing at all, thank you,” 
replied both, hastily. 

“Not a cupper coffee? Some tea, then? 
They have firs’-rate i’scream—sommer that? 
Not a thing f Well, Miss—a—Missis Pom- 
fret ’ll die ’fore she gits home: you may git 
on a buffet cyar. Lemme git you a cupper 
tea?” 

This monologue was interspersed with a 
series of “No, thank yous,” “No, thanks,” 
from Barbara and Dering. Their tormentor 
finally desisted. 

“Well,” he ejaculated at last, “think I’ll 
set down.” 

Barbara and Dering looked at each other 
with eyes that groaned. They had now a 
scant twenty minutes. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


143 


“ Yo’ train’s due in twenty minutes,” said 
Mr. Buzzy, blithely. “ Got all yo’ things 
together ?” 

“Yes,” snapped Dering. 

“ That’s right. I reckon you’re right use’ter 
travellin’. Ben all over Europe, haven’t 
yuh ?” 

“ No.” 

“ Excuse me, but yuh cert’n’y look hit.” 

“ Did you say my train was due in twenty 
minutes ?” 

“ Seventeen, now.” 

“Would you mind asking if it’s on time?’ 

“ I know,” said Mr. Buzzy. “ ’Tis.” 

Barbara felt as though she could not stand 
it another moment. Her ears sang, and she 
hated Buzzy in a way that astonished herself. 
She thought that she would almost rejoice 
to see the Express that was to bear Dering 
from her roll over the odoriferous body of the 
other. She stood up to her full height, with 
a quick, gasping breath, and then sat down 
again. 

“ Are you ill ?” said Dering, in alarm. 

“What’s the matter?” said Buzzy, also 
scrambling to his feet. 


144 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


“ Nothing. I was crushing my dress.” 

“ Ha! that ! ” laughed Buzzy. “ You shot 
up in such a hurry I reckoned yore bustle 
must have springs in it!” 

“ Mr. Buzzy,” said Dering, in elaborately 
slow and distinct tones, “ I have something 
of importance to say to Mrs. Pomfret, and I 
have now only thirteen minutes in which to 
say it. Could you be so very kind as to leave 
us together ?” 

If he had thought to freeze Buzzy by this 
frigid and biting address, he was vastly mis¬ 
taken. 

“ Cert’n’y,—cert’n’y,” acquiesced that per¬ 
sonage at once. “ Why didn’t you tip me 
the wink? I’d er twigged. Beckon I’ll go ’n’ 
git a snack.” And he went. 

XII. 

“ Now!” said Dering, looking at her. His 
look was so intense, so beseeching, that she 
imagined herself in his arms. 

“My heart aches so!—it aches so!” she 
said, piteously. Her lip began to quiver, and 
she turned from him, having that wisdom 
which teaches a woman to let a man observe 


THE QUICK OR TEE DEAD? 145 

the signs of her grief everywhere save in her 
face. She did not want Dering to carry away 
a picture of her features pursed up in the 
ridiculous distortions of real sorrow. 

“ It aches so!” she said, again. “ I wish I 
could cut it out!” She ground her teeth a 
little savagely. “ I suffer too much!” she 
panted. 

Dering came close to her. His heart’s core . 
yearned over her, but he had a consciousness 
in the very curls on the back of his head that 
the ticket-agent was regarding them interest¬ 
edly through his little window. 

“ My love,—my heart’s heart,—what can I 
do ?” he whispered. “ What can I say ? You 
will let me write ?” 

“ Yes, yes,” she said, in a choking voice. 

It hurt her to think that he had considered 
not writing as a possibility. The big railway- 
clock ticked on pompously. 

“ Can’t you stop that odious thing ?” she 
asked, and then began to laugh hysterically. 

“Hush!” said Dering, taking her upper 
arms into a firm grasp, and looking at her 
with bright, masterful eyes. “ This has been 
too much for you,” he said, regretfully, as 

13 


146 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


they sat down again. “It wouldn’t have 
been if that gr-r-r— that bad-smelling 
scoundrel hadn’t-” 

Here Barbara began to laugh again : he 
tried to silence her as before, and ended by 
joining in. 

“ Oh, how ghastly it all is!” she exclaimed, 
finally, as, their paroxysm over, she began 
to wipe her eyes with little sideward sweeps 
of the different hems of her pocket-hand¬ 
kerchief. Then, with a violent start, “ Oh! 
is he coming again? I thought I heard 
him.” 

“ If he does, there’ll be one Buzzy less in 
his apparently prolific family,” replied Dering, 
grimly. 

“ Well, never mind him. Say something to 
me that I can remember,—something gentle. 
Oh, God ! I am so wretched !” 

“ Listen, then. I love you, —I love you,— 
I love you.” 

“Hush! be careful! Thank you. Oh, 
you are so good !—Oh ! look at that horrible 
baby!” 

“ Gir-r-r! Why did you call my attention 
to it?” 



THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 147 

“ But it is so liideous. It fascinates me. 
Look! look ! Why, its head wobbles about 
just like 4 She’s’ !” 

“ Isn’t that rather ungrammatical ?” he 
asked, making the national joke then in 
vogue. 

“ And its hands!—they are all creased, as 
if they had been washed and rough-dried 
and never ironed out. Isn’t that little, blue- 
worsted cap it has on, awful ? I suppose that 
woman is its mother. Look at her poking it 
under the chin ! How can she! Oh ! it’s 
blowing bubbles out of its mouth. Oh, how 
awful! Can’t we get away from it ?—any¬ 
where !—anywhere! Let’s go out on the 
platform.” 

She dragged him out just in time to see his 
train come in. As it clanked by, she lifted 
her great, wretched eyes, heavy with shadows, 
full to his. 

“ I feel as if I had ten hearts,” she said, 
“each too big for me, and as if every time 
those heavy wheels turned over they crushed 
one.” 

“ Darling!” was all that he could answer, 
in a tone of entreaty. 


148 THE QUICK OR TI1E DEAD? 

“ Will you write from Washington ?” 

“ This very night. I’ll write on the train 
and post it when we get to Washington. 
Barbara ?” 

“ Yes. What is it? What is it?” 

“Do you—love me—just a little?” 

“You know I do. It is different, but I 
do. Dearly,—dearly.” 

“ What do you mean by 4 different’ ?” 

“ I don’t know. I’ll write it to you. 
Don’t let those men run so near you with 
those great trucks: it makes me nervous.” 

“ Then you will write to me ?” 

“ Yes. They will be very stupid letters, 
though. There isn’t anything to write about 
here.” 

“You silly dear!” Barbara winced. “As 
if I wanted to hear about anything but your¬ 
self! You’ll put that in sometimes, won’t 
you ? And you’ll-” 

“ I reckon you’d better be gittin’ yo’ things 
together,” broke in Mr. Buzzy, who here 
came towards them, nibbling the end of a 
chicken-wing. “ Excuse me, but this fried 
chick’n’s too good tuh let slide. I’ll take yo’ 
satchel, suh.” 



THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 149 

“ Thanks,” said Dering. He turned and 
grasped Barbara’s hands once more, as Buzzy 
disappeared into the sleeper. They both tried 
to speak, swallowed, and murmured some in¬ 
distinct words, which were drowned in the 
noise of a passing truck. The locomotive 
gave a series of hoarse, barking whistles, and 
the bell began to clang slowly, while the 
jarring “ jink-jank” of a train about to move 
off passed through the whole fabric. Dering 
loosed her hands, clutched them once more, 
gave her a heart-broken look, and plunged 
into the Pullman, just as Mr. Buzzy swung 
staggering off on the platform. Barbara had 
withdrawn at once into the waiting-room, and 
was busy gathering up her muff and um¬ 
brella, when Buzzy rejoined her. 

“ I say, now,” he began, in a cajoling tone, 
“ come ’n’ have a little snack. The coffee’s 
jes’ ez hot V good. Will you ?” 

“Thank you, I’m not at all hungry,” 
stammered poor Barbara. The spell of the 
horrible waiting-room was upon her, and she 
could not imagine how happiness ever came 
to human beings who lived in a world in¬ 
habited also by locomotives, negro porters, 

13 * 


150 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


and young men of Buzzy’s ilk. She stared 
at him absently with her wide, beautiful eyes, 
twisting the folds of her umbrella tighter and 
tighter in her strong, ungloved hands. 

“ I’m not at all hungry,” she said, again. 

“ Some wine, then,” he urged. “ You look 
mighty pale. Virginia claret’s firs’-rate,— 
mh?” 

“ I’m not thirsty; thank you very much/ 

“ Well, but jes’ fuh med’cine,—mh?” 

“ I don’t want anything. I don’t want any 
wine, thank you, Mr. Buzzy.” 

Buzzy rubbed one of his lemon-colored 
eyebrows with a contemplative and dubious 
thumb. 

“ Uv co’se, ef you’re bent on it,” he said. 

“ Thank you,” replied Barbara, vaguely. 

When she got into the cab which he had 
ordered for her, he stepped in also. 

“ Jes’ drive with you to th’ liv’ry-stable ’n’ 
see you in yore own cay’idge,” he explained. 
“ Unc’ Joshua took his horses there tuh feed 
’m, uv co’se.” 

“ Of course,” said Barbara. 

“Cert’n’y has got dark sudden,” he ex¬ 
claimed, in another tone, peering up at the 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 151 

dim sky, first through one window, then 
through the other. 

“ Very,” said Barbara. 

“ Choll’tt’sville ain’t lighted’s well’s might 
be,—is it ?” 

“ Not at all,” said Barbara. A droll sort 
of parody on a celebrated saying began to 
drum regularly in her ears. She repeated it 
over and over: “ Some are born with neigh¬ 
bors, some achieve neighbors, and some have 
neighbors thrust upon them.” She was be¬ 
ginning to think that Buzzy meant to drive 
all the way back to Rosemary with her. His 
monotonous voice interrupted her revery: 

“ Wonder why yo’ frien’ was so set on takin’ 
that p’tic’lar train ?” 

“ He wanted to be in New York to-morrow.” 

“ Well, he could ’a’ taken th’ 7.30 jes’ ’s 
well.” 

“ What 7.30?” said Barbara, excitedly. 

“ Why, the 7.30 Express.” 

She looked at him, feeling a quiver run 
through her,—a thrill of indignation and dis¬ 
appointment. “ Do you mean to say that 
there is another train that goes at 7.30 ?” she 
said, in a very low voice. 


152 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ Why, cert’n’y,” replied Mr. Buzzy. He 
took off his hat, regarded the purple-and- 
white material with which it was brimming 
over, and then, as if undecided, placed hat 
and contents between his knees. 

“ Did you mention that to Mr. Dering ?” 
questioned the low voice. 

“ Never thought tuh. Thought he knew, 
uv’ co’se. Hyuh we are!” And he bounded 
out through the carriage door, which only 
opened after vigorous batterings of his knee. 
He appeared almost simultaneously at the 
other door, through which he thrust his af¬ 
fable visage. 

“ ’S all right,” he announced. “ Unc’ 
Joshua’s all ready,—jes’ gotter light th’ can¬ 
dles. Mr. Payne’ll attend tuh them.” 

She leaned back in apathetic silence, after 
another dreary “ Thank you,” and watched 
Mr. Payne’s stalwart figure in its shiny oil¬ 
cloth cloak, which reflected back the white- 
gray sky in a faint glisten. A swift, pattering 
rain was falling, although through the fleecy 
clouds the light of a full but unseen moon 
filtered wanly. “ I don’t b’leeve you’ll need 
no candles,” said Mr. Buzzy, turning around 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 153 

and around, and regarding the dripping sky 
with face and hands uplifted. Mr. Payne 
put those articles in, however, and Unc 
Joshua drove off, after Barbara had thanked 
both men for their service. 

“ Oh, it don’t make a dit 0 ’ bifference!” 
exclaimed the jovial Buzzy in return, having 
recourse to one of his contorted combinations 
of words. 

Barbara, rolling along with closed eyes 
over the rough and night-veiled roads that 
led from Charlottesville to Bosemary, tried to 
imagine what Dering was then doing. She 
fancied him asking the porter some trivial 
question, raising his voice a little in order to 
be heard above the incessant clinking of sur¬ 
rounding objects. Then he took out a memo¬ 
randum-book and a pencil. He began his 
letter to her. She tried to fancy the first 
words as they would look when written, but 
she saw so many terms of endearment that 
she was undecided. Her imagination was 
disturbed by visions of the omnipresent and 
always thirsty child who traverses the aisles 
of Pullman sleeping-cars in the direction of 
the water-cooler, followed by an anxious 


154 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

nurse-maid attached to the end of its petti¬ 
coat. This child had, in her imagination, 
flaxen hair which was begrimed with cinders, 
and a corresponding complexion. It drank 
water incessantly, spilling it copiously over 
its fat, chapped chin, and when it was not 
drinking water it was gnawing a large drum¬ 
stick of chicken or munching huge pieces of 
gingerbread. 

There was the semi-invalid, who had gone 
to sleep with her head on a soot-streaked pil¬ 
low. There was the drummer, who had also 
gone to sleep in a quilted travelling-cap, with 
a fat hand, ornamented by a large blood¬ 
stone ring, displayed upon his gay trousers. 
There was the young demoiselle with abun¬ 
dant curls and giggles, who was travelling 
alone under charge of the conductor, and to 
whom the conductor was now addressing a 
series of facetious remarks. There was the 
section full of young men and women who 
talked in such loud, boisterous tones that 
their conversation could be heard above 
everything else. There was the fat woman 
who was forever putting things in her satchel 
and taking them out; the two middle-aged 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


155 


discussers of politics; the- She opened 

her eyes and leaned forward, far into the raw, 
mist-laden air. The hills were a blurred out¬ 
line, the fields masses of rich gloom. She 
had one thing, at all events, to be thankful 
for: she was not in a Pullman sleeping- 
car. 

Unc’ Joshua had to lift her bodily out of 
the carriage in his strong arms when they 
reached Rosemary. He and Rameses almost 
carried her up-stairs to her bedroom, where a 
blithe fire was blazing and a pretty tea-table 
drawn up before its glow. Martha Ellen, on 
turning to greet her mistress with a pleased 
smile, was horrified to see her cast herself on 
her knees before the big chintz-covered chair 
and break into wild sobbing. 

“ Lor! Miss Barb’ra! Lor! Miss Barb’ra, 
chile ! Lor ! honey !” she ejaculated, at in¬ 
tervals. “ Miss Barb’ra,—my own Miss Bar¬ 
b’ra,— don ’ cry so ! Don\ honey ! Lemme 
go fur Sarah. I’m goin’ fur Sarah.” 

She flew on nimble feet, and returned with 
this Sarah, who was a little, delicate, thin 
woman of about forty, possessing a face as 
keen and sweet as it was plain. She wore 



156 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

her black wool in neat masses pinned close to 
her head, and her small figure in its close 
black gown resembled an exclamation-point, 
so slight and decided was it. 

Though so diminutive, she was apparently 
very strong, for she stooped and lifted Bar¬ 
bara from where she was kneeling, and took 
her on her breast. She said nothing, merely 
motioning Bameses to leave them, by a certain 
movement of her head. Then she began to 
rock herself to and fro, with a gentle, croon¬ 
ing sound, such as women make over ailing 
babies, stroking the lovely, copper-colored 
head on her breast from time to time with 
her tender, dark fingers, sometimes pressing 
a dusky cheek against its bright lustre, some¬ 
times reaching up furtively to dash the tears 
from her own eyes. 

After a while she coaxed her mistress to lie 
on the sofa, while she prepared a warm bath 
for her, moving about the room with noiseless 
swiftness, her very skirts having a subdued 
sound, which was to the noise made by the 
skirts of other women as a whisper is to 
laughter. The room was soon fragrant with 
the attar of roses which she had shaken into 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 157 

the tepid water until it was milky, and she 
then arranged some fine linen garments on 
the bed, and leaned over her mistress, saying, 
in a delicious guttural,— 

“ Miss Barb’ra, darlin’, yo’ barth’s ready. 
I’ll go out in th’ hall till you call me.” 

In reply, Barbara reached up her arms and 
drew down the small, woolly head against 
her shoulder. 

“ Oh,” she sighed, “ I am so miserable! I 
am so miserable! I am so miserable!” 

“Yes, yes, darlin’ Miss Barb’ra, but joy 
comes in th’ mornin’.” 

“ Oh, but when will it be morning ? Com¬ 
fort me, Sarah! Sarah, can’t you comfort 
me? I comforted you that time when you 
were so unhappy. Didn’t I ? Didn’t I ?” 

“Th’ dear Lord he knows you did, Miss 
Barb’ra. I’ll never forget you,—no, not 
whiles I lives,—no, not when I’m dead. I’d 
come to you out er my grave ef you called 
for me.” 

“ Don’t talk of graves!—talk of life,—life, 
—life! Oh, Sarah, isn’t death a dreadful 
thought? Isn’t it awful? Don’t you wish 
we could just disappear,—just be snatched 
14 


158 THE QUICK OR THE DEADf 

away somewhere, and nothing be left of us ? 
Oh, I am so unhappy ! Comfort me ! Com¬ 
fort me! Can’t you think of anything that 
will comfort me ?” 

“ Think of how good you are, darlin’. 
That ought tuh comfut you. Think how 
ev’ybody loves you,—ew’ybody, Miss Barb’ra, 
down to my po’ little girl, that you has done 
so much for. She thinks they ain’ nobody 
like Miss Barb’ra. She says a little prayer 
for you ev’y night. Think of all the good 
you has done. Think of how good an’ sweet 
an’ kin’ you are, all the time, to ey’ybody. 
Oh, Miss Barb’ra, darlin ’ Miss Barb’ra, you 
oughtn’ tuh be unhappy ! Now take yo’ nice, 
warm barth, an’ then you’ll feel so much 
better. I put so much scent in it, th’ whole 
room smells jes’ like summer-time. Come on : 
yo’ pretty little night-gown’s all ready, an’ th’ 
white furs all spread out fur you tuh stan’ on. 
Come on, Miss Barb’ra. Let Sarah help you 
up. Think of how ev'yho&y loves you,—th’ 
farm-han’s and embody.” 

“Do they really love me, Sarah?” asked 
the girl, in the childish tone and manner that 
always accompanies absolute misery. “ It is 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 159 

good to be loved : isn’t it, Sarah ? It helped 
you that time for me to love you : didn’t it ? 
I’m glad they love me.” Then, as Sarah was 
about to leave the room, “ Put your arms 
around me once more. Hold me tight,— 
tight,—tighter still: I don’t care if it hurts. 
You love me,—don’t you, Sarah ?” 

“ Th’ dear Saviour in heaven he knows I 
does, Miss Barb’ra.” 

“And you think I’ll be happy some day?” 

“ Miss Barb’ra, I knows you will,—I knows 
you will.” 

“ And will you pray about it ?” 

“I duz pray about it, darlin’ Miss Bar¬ 
b’ra. They ain’t no time, night or day, when 
I prays, that I don’t pray ’bout you. Now 
take yo’ barth, ’fore it gets cold.” 

She went out, closing the door, which Bar¬ 
bara opened almost immediately afterwards. 

“ Sarah-” 

“ Yes’m ?” 

“Sarah, come here just one minute. Just 
hold me again one minute, and say you think 
I’ll be happy.” 

The little woman clasped the beautiful figure 
with fervent, sinewy brown arms. 



160 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ I knows you will!” she reiterated. “ I 
knows you will!” 

“ And you love me ?” 

“ Miss Barb’ra, the good Lord himself will 
have to make you understan’ that. I can’t 
seem to do it. Darlin’ Miss Barb’ra!” 

When, having taken her fragrant bath, 
Barbara lay like some sweet-smelling flower 
between the fine sheets of her girlhood’s bed, 
Sarah, kneeling beside her in the firelight, 
stroked gently and unceasingly the languid, 
half-bare arm nearest her. 

“That’s so good! that’s so good!” mur¬ 
mured the girl, in a tired voice. Suddenly 
she roused herself. 

“ Oh, I forgot! Look on the table, Sarah, 
and hand me that little book,—the one with 
the cross on it. There; no,—a little farther 
to the end. There, that’s it.” She took it 
eagerly, and, while slipping it under her 
pillow, kissed it furtively. 

“Bub my arm some more, Sarah.” In 
another moment she started up again. 
“Sarah, bring the candle. I’m going to 
choose a verse. You open it. What’s your 
finger on ? Bead it.” 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 161 

Sarah read slowly, in her uncertain, soft 
tone, and with her earnest face close to the 
fine print. It is quite true that the little 
colored woman read the following words to 
that beautiful, distracted, quivering, yearning 
creature in the bed beside her,—read these 
words: 

“For in death no man rememberetli thee, 
and who-” 

“ That will do,—that will do, Sarah. Put 
out the candle.” 

As the warm dusk of the firelight again 
encompassed them, she reached out and drew 
Sarah to her with both arms. 

“You don’t know why, dear, but that was 
a message to me. Perhaps—I—may—be— 
happy—again.” 

“ Miss Barb’ra, I knows you will!” 

“ Well, good-night, little Sarah. Don’t 
forget to say that prayer. Will you rub my 
other arm a little longer ?” 

XIII. 

It is true that Dering had made an attempt 
to write while on the train, as he had prom¬ 
ised, but it is also true that he was obliged 

14 * 



162 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

to abandon tlie idea, since his chirography, 
at no time good, was rendered entirely un¬ 
decipherable by the motion of the car. He 
replaced note-book and pencil, and gave him¬ 
self up to contemplation of the flying land¬ 
scape. It was dreary, colorless, monotonous. 
The ragged negroes and vehicles at the tumble- 
down stations depressed him. One horrible, 
legless old woman, huddled in what appeared 
to be a very large, wooden bread-trough, was 
made radiant by all the loose silver in his 
pockets; and she called on heaven to bless 
him until the train was out of hearing-dis¬ 
tance. As it grew darker, the squares of 
light from the car-windows, flitting up and 
down on the uneven ground, made him dizzy. 
He drew down the curtain, and leaned back 
against the window-frame, closing his eyes. 
The horrible, jarring din about him actually 
interfered with his thoughts, so that he could 
scarcely recall Barbara’s face as he had last 
seen it, sallow and pinched with grief; but he 
remembered finally, with a species of incre¬ 
dulity, that it had been lovely in spite of its 
yellowish tone and the great shadows under 
her eyes. How she had looked at him that 


THE QUICK OR THE BEAD? 163 

last second ! His heart gave a hot leap along 
his breast to his throat, leaving a fiery track 
behind it as of sparks. He tried to fancy 
her beside him : they were married; her wrap 
and umbrella were on the opposite seat; she 
had put her feet up beside his: he could 
fancy the very lights that would sparkle on 
her smart varnished boots. She would pre¬ 
tend to read: he fancied she would not talk 
much to him: in fact, people would think 
they were rather bored with each other. 
Then he would call her attention to some 
passing object, and, as she leaned across him 
to look, he would kiss the great knot of her 
sea-smelling hair. That would thrill her 
with an exquisitely delicate sense of loving 
and being loved: she would give the subtle, 
cowering shiver that he remembered, and 
press slightly against him as she leaned back 
with an expression more coldly bored and in¬ 
different than ever. It suddenly swept over 
him that with each abominable rattle of that 
noisy train he was being whirled farther and 
farther away from all those delicate charms. 
What if she were to be ill ?—to need him ? 
What if she were ill at this very moment ? 


164 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

What if the mettlesome steeds of Unc’ Joshua 
were dashing in a mad run over those wretch¬ 
edly rough roads ? He could fancy her lying 
senseless in that thick gloom, with just a thin 
stream of blood from her temple shining out 
vividly. A cold sweat broke out on his own 
forehead. 

“ How far are we from Washington?” he 
asked the porter, who passed by at that mo¬ 
ment. 

“ Be ’n Eleksandria hi ’bout fift’ minutes,” 
replied the man, making quick flourishes over 
the back and arms of the opposite seat with a 
large feather duster. 

“ Thanks,” said Dering. 

“ Kin I git yah anything, suh ?” asked the 
porter, in tones which meant, “Won’t you 
give me something ?” but which Dering was 
too worried and restless to notice. 

“ No, thanks,” he said, shortly, and then, 
as the man lingered, thrust his head under the 
still lowered curtain and kept it there until 
the porter had disappeared. 

When they reached Washington, he took 
a hansom and drove directly to Wormley’s, 
where the first thing he asked for, after seeur- 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


165 


ing a room, was pen and paper. He got so 
nervous, however, after he had written ten 
lines that he pushed everything aside, and, 
summoning a waiter, ordered another hansom 
to be called in an hour. This interval he 
devoted chiefly to a cold bath, which braced 
him up a good deal, and to an excellent din¬ 
ner. He then plunged into the cab, after the 
impetuous fashion which distinguished him, 
ordering the bewildered cabby to drive “Any¬ 
where.” 

“ Anywhere, sir ? How, sir ? How long, 
sir?” 

“ Till I tell you to stop.” 

“ All right, sir. Cert’n’y, sir. Ten o’clock, 
sir. Dollar an hour, sir.” 

“ Yes, I know it is,”—grumpily. “And if 
you try to beat me for more, you’ll regret it.” 

“ Yessir. All right, sir.” 

Off they started, — clatter-clack, clatter- 
clack, b-r-r-r-r-r, clatter-clack, clatter-clack, 
clatter-clack, b-r-r-r-r-r-r,—that inimitable 
sound of wheels and horses’ feet on the 
asphalt which Dering usually found so de¬ 
lightful. To-night it put him in a species 
of fever, and he sat with his shoulders drawn 


166 THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 

up in a rebelliously surly attitude. It seemed 
incomprehensible and unnatural that scarce 
one hundred miles away the same soft rain 
was falling on those muddy Albemarle roads, 
blurring the graceful outline of the hills, and 
frosting Barbara’s window-panes. Here, in 
the biting glare of electric lights, the heavy 
foliage of the trees took on a theatrical seem¬ 
ing; they appeared like shapes cut out of 
dingy green card-board. The figures of hur¬ 
rying pedestrians reflected downward in the 
rain-washed pavements, and the similarly re¬ 
produced cabs with their steaming horses, re¬ 
minded him of clever Indian-ink sketches by 
French artists. Was it possible that only a 
few hours ago Unc’ Joshua had been driving 
him along a primitive Virginian turnpike, with 
Mr. Buzzy ensconced upon the front seat? 
His whole life of the past few months looked 
unreal to him in this winking, blue-white 
glare. He could not analyze any of the feel¬ 
ings that tormented him, being only conscious 
of a fierce lack, which once or twice deceived 
him into thinking that he was physically 
hungry. In the midst of these soaked and 
thronging streets, he was beset by an in- 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 167 

tolerable sense of unimportance; he had no 
acquaintances in Washington, and knew very 
little of the town itself, else he would have 
sought out some person, congenial or other¬ 
wise, with whom to pass those dreary hours 
of enforced waiting. 

He roused suddenly and glanced about 
him. They were passing the White House, 
which looked in the electric waver like a 
large Christmas-card ornamented with mica 
and with windows of isinglass behind which 
lighted candles were being held. Broken 
gusts of chatter and music alternated with 
the patter of the horses’ feet and the rumble 
of wheels; the trees more than ever resem¬ 
bled those of the foot-light Arcadia, and 
through the pale sky overhead a glittering 
dust seemed sifting, as though through a 
great sieve. He was depressed without know¬ 
ing why; the very brightness and diversity 
of the passing scene filled him with a sense 
of gloom ; and it was not until he had stopped 
the cab a moment, to bestow five dollars on a 
hunchbacked lad, that his spirits rose at all. 
These acts of unguided and munificent charity 
were one of Dering’s panaceas against the 


1G8 THE QUICK OR THE DEADf 

blues: he found it cheering to remember the 
amazed expressions of gratitude, both facial 
and vocal, that were turned upon him. 

When he reached his hotel again, he once 
more attacked the promised letter to Barbara. 
This was very up-hill work, as he did not 
know what manner of missive she expected 
from him, and was, moreover, wholly unused 
to writing love-letters. To begin it was im¬ 
possible. “ My dear Barbara” looked too 
cold and unnatural. “ My darling” was, 
under the circumstances, out of the question. 
He compromised by starting off abruptly: 
“Have just arrived in Washington, and find 
I cannot leave until 9.15 to-morrow morn¬ 
ing.” Here he stopped and began to walk 
up and down the room, which was a large one 
and adapted to this caged-beast order of ex¬ 
ercise. It struck him that thus far his letter 
was too telegraphic both in style and matter, 
and at the same time a brilliant idea occurred 
to him. Why not telegraph, merely, from 
Washington, and write from New York? 
He put this plan into execution at once, and 
on the next morning Barbara received the 
following message, which had originally been 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 169 

written in French, but which, owing to the 
intricacies of Dering’s handwriting and to 
certain deficiencies in the education of the 
telegraph operator, reached her in the state 
below recorded: 

“Se malhoornse ma faib tellemnt de mal 
que jetait malade pouvair pat ecrire. Pe 
regrettig pat lee passe, ilyu trap di futilite. 
Rodedens. Toujooe at voue.” 

(No signature.) 

She had been in such a nervous state all 
day, expecting momentarily the advent of 
that promised and lengthy bulletin, that the 
effect of this unparalleled billet-doux was to 
throw her into fits of genuine if somewhat 
frantic laughter. She screamed with merri¬ 
ment until large tears rolled down her face 
and blotted the slip of yellow paper in her 
hand; then, the first sense of humor having 
passed, she became conscious of a keen disap¬ 
pointment. She could not possibly hope for 
a letter until three days had passed, and in 
the mean time her only solace would be that 
mangled message on her lap. She gave the 

15 


170 the quick OR THE DEADf 

hopeless and helpless sigh of a woman who 
feels that she could make better love than her 
lover, and threw herself back among the 
white furs on her sofa, trying to imagine the 
words that he would say to her, rather than 
those which he would write. 

XIY. 

Dering in the mean time had reached 
New York, and, after an elaborate and re¬ 
generating toilet, was sauntering into the 
Manhattan Club to lunch tete-a-tete with his 
thoughts of Barbara. The Letter was as yet 
unwritten, but he felt material for it accumu¬ 
lating in his mind. 

As he entered the dining-room, he jostled 
against a man who was also going in, and, 
turning to apologize, recognized an acquaint¬ 
ance who made up in charm what he lacked 
in youth. He was a Bostonian of the Bos¬ 
tonians, but this fact did not at all clash with 
his present whereabouts, as Bostonians seem 
a species of social whale that have to come up 
in New York to breathe. What did some¬ 
what astound Dering, however, was the fact 
that Mr. Everstone Beanpoddy proposed that 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 171 

tliey should lunch together,—distinguished 
personages of a certain age generally prefer¬ 
ring to partake of youthful society and Little- 
Neck clams at different times; and it was 
with an almost overwhelmed sensation that 
Dering seated himself in the chair opposite to 
Mr. Beanpoddy, at one of the small tables. 
This, by the way, was the gentleman who had 
recommended him to select for a feminine 
friend a woman who had known some great 
sorrow, his reason for this advice being that, 
having known grief personally, she would be 
less ready than most of her sisters to inflict it 
on another. 

“ You’re looking rather fagged,” he now 
remarked, stretching his fingers among the 
wineglasses, as though he were about to strike 
a chord on some instrument and awaited the 
harmonious result with pleasure. “Not re¬ 
covered from race-week yet?” 

“I wasn’t in town on race-week,” said 
Dering, wondering if he had better answer 
“ Washington” or “ Tuxedo” to the question 
that he knew would follow, and vaguely curi¬ 
ous as to the unusual mid-day genialness of 
Mr. Beanpoddy. 


172 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“Not in town, eli? I must have a better 
look at you. You are a remarkable young 
man. Was it from necessity or a sense of 
duty that you absented yourself? And if 
you weren’t in town, where were you ?” 

Dering had formed his lips to pronounce 
the name of the Father of his Country, when 
Mr. Beanpoddy interrupted him. 

“ Ah, I remember now,” said he : “ you’ve 
been in Virginia. Some one told me,—some 
woman. You’ve a cousin there, haven’t you ? 
—a cousin by marriage,—young Pomfret’s 
widow. Some one told me she was a great 
beauty,—another woman, too. It must be 
true.” He glanced up here, and saw that 
Dering was coloring furiously. 

“ Ah! so that’s true, too,” he continued, 
calmly. “Another woman told me that. 
Your absence during race-week is quite 
accounted for. Am I to condole with or 
congratulate you ?’’ 

“ Neither,” said Dering, shortly, and then 
forced a laugh, feeling that he had shown 
temper. 

“Then I will congratulate you on not 
having to condole with you. Your seedy 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 173 

appearance, however, is not yet accounted 
for.” He waited a moment or two, as if ex¬ 
pecting a reply, and then went on : “ In spite 
of your expressive and laconic reply, my dear 
boy, I'm afraid that you're hard hit,—down 
on your luck, so to speak. I remember we 
had an interesting conversation on the sub¬ 
ject of friendship between the sexes, just be¬ 
fore you left for Virginia. I am sure that 
you will pardon my suspicions when you 
reflect on the exact correspondence of Mrs. 
Valentine Pomfret’s personality with a bit of 
advice that I gave you. Let me add one 
thing. If any one were to ask me what I 
considered grief, of any kind, most nearly to 
resemble, I would reply by slightly mis¬ 
quoting the words of the Prince of Denmark, 
— 4 a mouse-trap.' If you ask why, or if you 
will allow me to tell you why,” pursued Mr. 
Beanpoddy, in whom the matutinal vermouth 
cocktail had begun to stir the spirit of epi¬ 
gram, 44 1 will say that grief is always a trap. 
We walk into it sometimes quite blindfold; 
sometimes the smell of the toasted cheese 
which it contains is too much for us; some¬ 
times we get nipped by trying to help some 

15 * 


174 the quick or the dear? 

brother mouse out. But it is always wiser, 
in the event of being caught, to content our¬ 
selves in the fixed compartment with such 
of the cheese as remains, rather than to go 
whirling around in the revolving portion, 
rubbing our nose against the wire, exhausting 
ourselves, and always ending where the first 
evolution began. At least such is my experi¬ 
ence.” 

And Mr. Beanpoddy, having delivered him¬ 
self of this monologue, leaned back in his chair, 
over the back of which he strapped his nap¬ 
kin, holding an end in either hand and look¬ 
ing genially at Dering. The latter was making 
elaborate designs in his salt-cellar, and seemed 
absent-minded. He generally gave Mr. Bean¬ 
poddy, whom he considered a brilliant person, 
the whole of his attention; but on this occa¬ 
sion he had lost half of the other’s harangue 
while adding to the material for The Letter, 
and he had just composed a rather telling sen¬ 
tence when the above-mentioned remark was 
addressed to him. 

“ That’s my experience,” repeated Mr. 
Beanpoddy. He lifted a glass of Tokay, 
squaring his lips outward as it touched them 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 175 

and then inward as lie withdrew it, and press¬ 
ing the corners of his mouth delicately with 
his napkin. 

“ Everything’s a trap more or less,” said 
Dering, pulling himself together, and answer¬ 
ing rather at random. 

“ Ah ! so you admit it ?” replied the other, 
smiling. “ Now, I hope, my dear fellow, that 
you don’t consider all this tirade officious. 
The milk of human kindness tinged with 
officiousness always reminds me of the real 
fluid tinged with wild onion. It is doubtless 
just as real and genuine an article, but cer¬ 
tainly it is very unpalatable.” 

“ How could I think you officious, Mr. 
Beanpoddy?” asked Dering, with some of 
the petulance of a child who is awakened in 
a strong light. 

Mr. Beanpoddy’s brilliancy was bringing 
tears to his minds eye, and he could not 
ponder on his absent lady in a glare which 
disclosed the very molecules that compose 
thought, as particles of dust are disclosed by 
a sunbeam. “ You are only too kind to take 
the trouble,” he added, earnestly. “ I appre¬ 
ciate it, I do assure you.” 


176 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ You are most tremendously in love,” 
replied Mr. Bean poddy. 

He was silent a few moments, rousing him¬ 
self suddenly. 

“ See here, my lad,” he remarked: “ can’t 
you tell me something about her? Is she 
handsome ?” A nod from Dering. “ Blonde 

or dar-” Another nod interrupted him. 

“ Large or-” 

“ She is very tall,” said Dering. Then he 
turned desperately and faced Mr. Beanpoddy 
point-blank. “ I do love her with every inch 
of me,” he said. “ It will seem absurd to you, 
of course, but I felt a sneak until I had said 
it.” 

He hesitated, rather expecting that Mr. 
Beanpoddy would contradict that statement 
concerning the absurdity of his (Dering’s) 
condition of mind ; but he did not. He played 
with a long light-colored cigar in his well- 
kept, very handsome hands, on which the 
veins were beginning to appear in a species 
of bas-relief, and merely raised one of his 
eyebrows slightly. 

“ Such statements don’t sound as incredible 
to old chaps like myself as you youngsters 



THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 177 

imagine,” lie said, finally: “ only it is like 
having lost an arm,—the sensation of hand 
and fingers remains with us, but we can’t 
grasp anything with them.” 

To this Dering made no reply. It struck 
him as a profoundly sad remark, and yet he 
did not wish to take it too seriously, Mr. 
Beanpoddy having a habit like that of an 
April sun, of smiling suddenly on gloom 
which he had evoked. He here solved the 
difficulty by answering himself. 

“ It is better to have one arm at twenty 
than all the fifty of Briareus at fourscore,” he 
remarked, with terse conviction, then added, 
with his delightful smile, which was bracketed 
between two curving dimples, “ If I had that 
number of hands, my dear boy, you may be 
sure they would be held out to you, each with 
a separate blessing for you and your sweet¬ 
heart.” His smile here became less genial 
and more condensed as it were, having a 
quizzical compression that elongated the dim¬ 
ples. 

“All this is even more generous than it 
seems,” he said, moving his wineglass about, 
so that its gold flecks of light fell upon an old 


178 THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 

hoop-ring of small diamonds set in iron, 
which he wore on his right hand. 

“ I don’t see how it could be,” replied Der¬ 
ing, warmly. “My tongue ties itself into 
knots whenever I really want to express my¬ 
self.” 

“ I had designs on you,” interrupted Mr. 
Beanpoddy. “I thought it would be very 
pleasant to have you for a great-nephew.” 

Dering once more colored furiously. 

“ It is I who should blush, my dear boy; 
but then I don’t know. Providence is con¬ 
sidered a great and successful match-maker, 
eh ? Well, you must ask me to your wedding. 
I wish I could attend in the office of miracle- 
worker and turn the waters of Existence into 
wine for you. However, Love is the god who 
is supposed to do that, although it’s generally 
the wine that is watered on such occasions 
nowadays. One decants one’s whole allotted 
life-portion of Perrier-Jouet on that momen¬ 
tous morning, and the remainder is apt to 
become flat, or else our Hebes trip in serving 
it.” 

“But if one doesn’t decant it all?” sug¬ 
gested Dering, shyly. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 179 

“Then the air gets compressed, and the 
bottles fly to pieces in one's hands,” replied 
Mr. Beanpoddy at once. “ No, no, my dear 
fellow, we cannot drink our wine and have it 
too, as runs the saying in regard to the his¬ 
torical doughnut. If we can merely quench 
thirst with what is left, we should be grate¬ 
ful.” 

“I think I’d rather famish,” said Dering, 
curtly. 

“You think so now. You don’t happen 
to be thirsty. Passion is like the spiced feasts 
which used to be given by the Inquisition to 
certain unfortunates who were doomed to be 
famished. I don’t fancy such individuals 
would have been very particular as to the 
excellence of any liquor which might have 
been offered them. Ah, my dear boy, there 
comes for us all a time when we echo the 
sentiments of the philosopher who said, 
‘ There’s no such thing as bad whiskey. 
Some’s better than others, but it’s all good.’ ” 

Dering had a dim idea that Mr. Bean¬ 
poddy was walking upon water somewhat 
beyond his own depth, but which upbore him 
in obedience to a certain mysterious power 


180 THE QUICK OB THE DEAD? 

which he wielded. He had recourse to a 
blunt mention of facts. 

“ Whiskey doesn’t get flat when it’s de¬ 
canted,” he said. “We were talking of 
champagne.” 

“Ah! that’s just it,” was the bland re¬ 
joinder. “ One would rather drink unpleas¬ 
antly fiery whiskey than unpleasantly flat 
champagne.” 

Dering was beginning to feel irritated. 
“I think I’d rather take my chances with 
the compressed air,” he said, pushing out his 
under lip with a slightly obstinate look. 

“ I have known many who preferred to,” 
replied Mr. Beanpoddy; “ but when a frag¬ 
ment of the glass of those figurative bottles 
flies in one’s mind’s eye it affects one exactly 
as the bit of glass which flew into the eye of 
the little girl in Andersen’s story of the 
Snow Queen. It froze her heart, you re¬ 
member.” 

“Yes; but, if you recall the rest of the 
story, her sweetheart thawed it out.” 

Mr. Beanpoddy rose, and answered between 
the puffs with which he lighted a fresh cigar 
from the stump of the other,— 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 181 

“Assuredly, my dear fellow; but if you 
will go a little further you will remember, 
also, that that feat was accomplished before 
marriage, not after.” 

XV. 

This conversation with Mr. Beanpoddy had 
on Dering an effect irritating rather than de¬ 
pressing. He felt that his love had been pat¬ 
ronized, and to a man, especially to a young 
man, it is infinitely more disagreeable to have 
his state of mind patronized than to be pat¬ 
ronized himself. 

Then, too, for the first time during theii 
friendship, Mr. Beanpoddy’s brilliancy had 
seemed insufficient, and when he thought of 
its radiance as having been turned upon Bar¬ 
bara he felt as though some one had turned 
an electric light upon a star. The distin¬ 
guished Bostonian’s similes seemed to him 
far-fetched, and his cynicism somewhat mere¬ 
tricious. A remark here occurred to Dering, 
which he wondered if he would have strength 
of mind enough to make to Mr. Beanpoddy 
when they next met. He fancied himself 
saying, quietly, “At least, Mr. Beanpoddy, 
16 


182 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

there is one thing in which you do believe,— 
that is, in your unbelief.” 

For one fact, however, he had to thank that 
charming pessimist,—namely, for the indig¬ 
nantly rebellious mood which he had aroused 
and which made The Letter a comparatively 
easy task. He tore up the stilted first two 
pages, which he had twice copied, and wrote 
the following words, in a species of panic lest 
they should escape him before recorded: 

“-1 will not begin this letter. I can¬ 

not know how you would have me begin it. 
I don’t even know whether you expect a con¬ 
ventional note now. I do not think you 
dream of the frightful self-control I have had 
to exercise over myself during the last two 
weeks. I am glad you do not know. I can 
only say, over and over, I love you,—I love 
you. Perhaps you will think it your duty to 
throw this in the fire when you read those 
words. But for God’s sake don’t be afraid 
of my ever forcing my love on you. I have 
told you, and I mean it, that everything shall 
be just as you say: I will write every week, 
or I will stop writing altogether, precisely as 



THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 183 

you may command. It is horrible here in 
this great whirl of life. Everything jars on 
me, or else I am out of tune with everything. 
I went to the play last night, and one of the 
actresses reminded me of you: her hair was 
just that rich, brown-red color; and I could 
see your very gesture. Strange to say, she 
had some of the tones in your dear voice, so 
that when I heard them my heart seemed to 
jump into my mouth like a hot coal. The 
foot-lights became a yellow blur. I was 
standing with you in that frozen field; I 
held you in my arms,—in my arms; I felt 
your heart on me ; I felt you,—you,— you . 
If this hurts you, forgive me. Remember, I 
do not know much about women, or how to 
handle them, as it were, and you are the 
first for whom I have ever had even a pass¬ 
ing fancy; that is, in the high sense of the 
word, of course. God forbid I should pose 
to you as an Admirable Crichton! When¬ 
ever I think of those other disturbing fancies 
that have starred my life with their little 
poisonous blossoms, I think of you as a dear 
gardener, who has cut out a great square of 
the sod on which they grew, tossed it aside, 


184 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

and, in the bare, torn space which it left, has 
planted a strong, straight, vigorous young 
tree,—my love for you, dear. 

“ I am writing this at the Club, sitting here 
by myself. Some rounders have just rolled 
down-stairs, after one of them had stuck his 
head in here and muttered to the rest, ‘G—d ! 
Man in that room all alone /’ I have had a 
rather hard day of it, and feel worn out, mind 
and body: so forgive this horrible scrawl. 
Your answer to this will tell me what to do. 

“ Yours, 

“ J. D.” 

When Barbara received this letter, she was 
seated at a small piano which had lately been 
placed in her room, playing that richly sombre 
second movement of Chopin’s Thirteenth Noc¬ 
turne. Martha Ellen placed the envelope be¬ 
fore her on the music-rack, and it fell down 
between her hands, making a slight discord. 
She withdrew her fingers from the chords 
which had been the delight of her husband, 
and opened Dering’s letter; then, having 
half drawn the closely-written sheets from 
the envelope, thrust them back, held them 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 185 

for a moment between her open palms, and 
went over in front of the wood fire. 

Her heart was beating heavily, and when 
she again withdrew the stiff leaves they rat¬ 
tled against each other in her eager grasp. 
Once more she put them away from her, then 
with a quick movement turned to the signa¬ 
ture. A certain shade, delicate but distinct, 
passed over her face, and she pressed her 
under lip outward and then close above her 
upper, in a gesture expressive of conviction 
slightly tinged with disappointment. A few 
moments afterwards she read the whole letter. 

Its effect upon her was contradictory, and 
consisted of a series of varying shocks rather 
than of any positive impression. Its opening 
went to her heart: she felt her throat swell 
as she read it. This sentence rather chilled 
her, however: “ I will write every week, or 
I will stop writing altogether, as you may 
command.” 

“ He doesn’t love me; he doesn’t love me,” 
she said, addressing the fire, and with a repe¬ 
tition of that unpleasantly convinced move¬ 
ment of her under lip. Again she read on, 
only to receive a still greater jar a few sen- 


186 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

tences further. An actress had reminded him 
of her!—a painted thing, with a sing-song 

voice and- Ah ! but here : the voice also 

resembled hers ; the hair,—“just that rich, 
brown-red color.” She put the letter down 
on the white fur rug beside her, and buried 
her face in the seat of a chair near by. If a 
woman has handsome hair, she likes to think 
that its tint has never been precisely repro¬ 
duced in the locks of any other woman, es¬ 
pecially in those of a “ leading lady,” who 
probably wears an auburn wig! 

What followed proved a slight compensa¬ 
tion, however. The fact of foot-lights having 
become a “yellow blur” was sufficient evi¬ 
dence that he had been thinking intensely of 
her, even while noting these points of resem¬ 
blance in that red-haired person on the stage. 
And when he said that he held her in his 
arms,—in his arms,—and felt her heart on 
him, and felt her,—her,— her ,—the boyish 
iterance and vehemence of it thrilled and 
startled her. 

She found herself smiling, her breath 
coming quickly. She lifted the paper nearer 
to her face. 



THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 187 

Then came that charming, dainty bit of 
allegory in which he likened her to a dear 
gardener, and his love for her to a vigorous 
young tree. 

Again she put down the letter and hid her 
face. She took it up again, touched, softened, 
delighted, only to receive a third jolt, as it 
were, against the brusque and hurried sen¬ 
tences with which it closed. She could see 
those rollicking dudes lurching down-stairs, 
and hear the drunken tones of amaze in 
which one of them had exclaimed, “ G—d! 
Man in that room all alone /” 

Poor Barbara, who was thoroughly morbid, 
overstrained, and overexcited, kneeled up, 
took the great chair into her embrace, and 
broke into a passion of sobs. They did not 
last very long, and ended in a fit of laughter, 
which was rather mirthless, although not at 
all hysterical. This in turn was replaced by 
a deep frown. 

She got to her feet, leaving the letter upon 
the rug, and walked up and down the large 
room, striking her hands lightly together, 
now behind her, now in front of her. She 
stopj3ed mechanically after a while, and took 


188 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

her Bible from a low table, opening it at 
random in that fashion which had become 
second nature to her. The verse upon which 
she put her finger ran as follows: “ And I 
will give them one heart and one way, that 
they may fear me forever, for the good of 
them, and of their children after them.” 
She turned hastily to another place: “ An 
end is come: the end is come. It watcheth 
for thee: behold, it is come.” The Bible 
slipped from her loosened hold upon the floor, 
and she sank to her knees beside it, pressing 
her joined hands into her lap and looking at 
the open book in front of her. 

“ It watches for me,” she said, wliisperingly. 
“ An end is come: it watches for me,—it 
watches. He watches me; he looks at me. 
He smiles to himself. I wonder if I’m going 
crazy ? I seem to be watching myself from 
some high place; I seem to be outside of my¬ 
self ; I am as apart from myself as my gown 
is. Oh! if I had only one soul to speak to, 
to help me!—no, not to help me,—only to be 
sorry with me!” She turned, still on her 
knees, and reached for Dering’s prayer-book, 
opening it at this verse: “Mine eyes long 


THE QUICK OB THE HEAD? 189 

sore for thy word, saying, Oh, when wilt thou 
comfort me ?” 

“ That is it! that is it!” she cried, trem¬ 
bling. “ 4 When wilt thou comfort me ?’ I 
cannot bear it! I cannot! I cannot! But I 
must. What can I do ? I can’t get away from 

it,—from myself,—from the memories- 

Oh, the memories! This place is haunted. 
I will go away. No: what am I saying ?— 
I came here for that; I came here to be 
haunted. Oh, Yal, help me! help me! My 
God, give him back to me! give him back 
to me! give him back to me! I will pay for 
it. Oh, it was cruel—it seemed cruel! We 
tried to be good; we tried to help others, and 
to be unselfish, and to think of your will in 

everything- I must be crazy. I will go 

out; I will go out into the air.” 

As she walked along the red roads, which 
were lightly powdered with snow, she found 
an idea grow in her mind until it had become 
a resolve, and twenty minutes later she knocked 
at the door of a small frame cottage which 
bore the sonorous title of “ The Rectory.” 
A child opened it for her,—a pretty thing in 
a brown woollen frock and white pinafore, 




190 the quick or the dead? 

who looked up at the tall, black-draped figure 
through her light-brown curls, which she 
pulled over her face with one hand. 

“ May I come in ? Is Mr. Trehune at 
home ?” said Barbara. 

The child sidled about, swinging the door 
from side to side, and muttered something 
indistinctly. 

“ It’s very cold,” pursued Barbara, with 
her smile. “ Mayn’t I come into the hall ?” 

“ Yes!” burst forth the child, as though a 
small fire-cracker had exploded in her mouth. 

Barbara stepped inside, out of reach of the 
bitter wind, and just as she did so Mr. Trehune 
himself came to the door of his study. 

“ Nell, you rogue-” he began, stopping 

short at sight of Barbara. 

“ Oh! may I speak to you a few mo¬ 
ments, Mr. Trehune?” she said, moving for¬ 
ward. “ I’m Barbara Pomfret. I am very 
unhappy. I thought you might say some¬ 
thing to me.” 

Trehune, who was a young man, blushed 
frantically, the color showing even through 
his light hair, which was cropped so close as 
to be of a silver tone. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


191 


He was tall and well put up, and had a 
broad, squarely-cut face, in which the mouth 
was the best feature, although his eyes, of a 
dark blue, were fine in spite of the lashes be¬ 
ing silvery like his hair and brows. He made 
an awkward bow which suggested the presence 
of a rusty hinge in the small of his back, and 
opened the door of his study. On the rug 
before the fire were three more children, each 
one younger than the little girl who had 
opened the door. All wore brown woollen 
frocks and white pinafores, and, as their father 
re-entered, began a clamor like that of a nest 
of birds about to be fed. This ceased abruptly 
as they caught sight of Barbara. 

“ I’m afraid I’m interrupting you,” she said, 
nervously. 

“ Oh, not the least,—not the least,” he as¬ 
sured her; and catching up the children, 
one on his shoulders, one under each arm, 
with Nell following, he went out by another 
door. 


XVI. 

When he came back he found his unex¬ 
pected visitor walking up and down his little 


192 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

room. She turned and came instantly towards 
him. 

“ Don’t be afraid, please,” she said, with a 
smile which be thought strange: “ I cry very 
seldom, and never before people; but some¬ 
thing told me you could help me.” 

“ I will try my best,” he said, seriously, 
and they sat down on opposite sides of a small 
table which was covered with a red-and-white 
damask cloth. Barbara stretched out her arms 
upon it, and rested one hand on the back of 
the other, interlacing the fingers. 

“ I am so unhappy !” she said, again. “ Per¬ 
haps ‘ tortured’ is a better word. Yes,—I am 
tortured. May I say things to you just as 
they come in my mind ?” 

“ Indeed you may,” said Trehune, gently. 
If he had not known who she was, he would 
certainly have thought her unbalanced, to say 
the least. 

“ Then tell me, do you expect to meet your 
wife in heaven ? Do you think she will know 
you? Do you think she knows about you 
now ? Do you—think—she—watches you ?” 

Poor Trehune had turned terribly pale, 
and sat staring at Barbara as though she had 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 193 

plunged a knife into him and was amusing 
herself by twisting it about. Dering had enter¬ 
tained a similar thought of her on one occasion. 

“ Do you ? Do you ?” said Barbara. “ Do 
you think she loves you now ? Or, if she loves 
you, do you think it is just as a spirit might, 
—just as a guardian angel might? Do you 
think she would care if—if you were to love 
some one else ?” 

He opened his lips to reply, but no sound 
escaped them. 

“ Do you think she would care, as a living 
woman would care, if you were to marry again ? 
Do you think God would let her know ? Do 
you think it would be a sin ? Do you think 
it would be a sin ? Do you think it would 
hurt her ? Do you think she would have a— 
a contempt for you ?” 

He let his arms drop heavily on the table, 
and, putting his head down on them, grasped 
at his short hair with both hands. 

“ I have hurt you,” said Barbara, stupe- 
fiedly. “ I came to you because I was hurt, 
and I have only hurt you. I am so sorry! 
Let me go. I only torture people: they 
cannot help me.” 


17 


194 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ No, don’t go,” Trehune managed to gasp. 
He got up and went to the window, where 
he remained for some moments. Barbara sat 
moveless, staring down at her locked hands, 
which still rested on the table before her. 

He returned presently, and resumed his 
seat, the only sign of emotion being a slight 
twitching of his deeply-curved upper lip. 

“ I—I—think I can answer you now,” he 
said, in a low voice. “ Will you ask me your 
questions once more ?” 

“ No, no,” replied Barbara. “ I was des¬ 
perate. I did not see how selfish it all was. 
You must forgive me. Please forgive me. I 
don’t think I am quite myself. I don’t think 
I would have hurt you so if I had been quite 
myself.” 

“ I understand ; I understand perfectly,” 
said Trehune. “ I will do anything in my 
power for you. You asked me if—I thought 
—I should—meet—my wife in heaven ?” 

“ Yes,” said Barbara. She leaned towards 
him, ceasing to breathe, and with eyes that 
devoured his face. 

His answer came at once, concise, distinct, 
assured. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


195 


“ I do believe that/’ he replied. 

“ You—you mean you think you will rec¬ 
ognize her ?” 

“Yes” 

“ As your wife ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ As your wife f” 

“ Yes.” 

“And she will recognize you, of course?” 

“ Of course.” 

“ But suppose you live to he an old, old 
man ?” 

“ That is with God.” 

“Do you think you will love each other 
as you did on earth ?” 

“ More.” 

“ No, but do you think you will love each 
other as you did then ?” 

“ No,—but more.” 

“ More ? More ?” she said, impatiently. 
“Wasn’t it enough? What could you want 
more?” 

“ Nothing!” he cried, with sudden passion, 
starting to his feet: then the dull look came 
back upon his face, and he dropped listlessly 
into his chair. 


196 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


“I wish I knew how to talk to you,” he 
said, almost piteously. 

“ But do you think she watches you ? Do 
you think that ?” pursued Barbara. 

“I think she is near me very often,” he 
answered, softly. 

Barbara cast a hurried glance over her 
shoulder. “ And you think you can wound 
her, can pain her, by your actions ?” 

“ I think it likely,” he said, with some 
doubt. “ But I don’t know. God may keep 
all such bitterness from those he has taken to 
himself. I try never to do what I think 
would have wounded her.” 

“ Ah, that is it! that is it!” cried Barbara. 
“ Then you are sure—you are sure that you 
will see her again ?—her hair, her eyes, her 
smile, herself?—all again, just as she was, just 
as you remember her, just as she was when 
she was your wife ? She will have the same 
ways, the same gestures of head and hand ? 
She will speak in the same voice? You will 
touch her; you will feel her; she will be your 
own again; you will take her in your arms; she 

will love you; you will have her ?-” She 

broke off, suffocated with her rapid breathing. 



THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


197 


Poor Trehune was staring in front of him, 
his face ghastly pale, his forehead drenched 
with perspiration. It was like being dragged 
backwards through a hell which he had once 
traversed. 

“ Oh,” exclaimed Barbara, in a heart¬ 
broken voice, “ I am making you suffer too 
much! I will go. Indeed you had better let 
me go.” 

“ I don’t mind suffering if I can help you,” 
he stammered. “ What is it that troubles 
you most? Do you doubt all these things 
that you have been asking me ?” 

Her answer stupefied him. 

“I—almost—want to,” she said, in a low 
voice, keeping her eyes on him. “ Is that a sin ?” 

“ You want to ?” said Trehune. 

“ I don’t know. Sometimes I think I do. 
I don’t know. Don’t you think it is far, far 
worse for a woman to marry a second time 
than for a man ?” 

“ So much depends,” began the poor young 
fellow, helplessly. “ There is no sin in either 
case-” 

“ But we could never be sure that they 
wouldn’t feel a contempt for us: could we?” 

17* 



198 THE quick or the dead? 

“ That doesn’t seem natural to me.” 

“ What doesn’t ?” 

“ That any one whom we have loved, and 
who is in heaven, at peace, at rest, could feel 
scorn for those on earth who love them.” 

“ Ah, yes,—for those who love them ; yes. 
But if one stops loving them,—if one loves 
some one else better: what then ? And after¬ 
wards—suppose—oh,” she panted on, with 
whitening face, “ suppose the other died too,— 
before you did,—and went there, and they— 
they discussed you,—talked you over to each 
other: what then? Could you stand that? 
Could any one stand that without going mad ? 
Mr. Trehune, do you think I can be going 
mad ? I have such terrible thoughts.” 

“ I think you are very morbid,” he said, 
seriously. “ And you look feverish. Are 
you sure you are well? Was it not impru¬ 
dent in you to come out in this bitter wind ?” 

“ My head was burning so,” she answered, 
“I felt as if the cold would help me. And 
then I could not seem to breathe in the house : 
there seemed something watching, watching, 
all the time. Oh, I am so unhappy!—I am 
so unhappy!” 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADf 199 

“ I wish to God I could help you,” he said. 
“ Is there no way ? Can’t you tell me some¬ 
thing of what is troubling you ?” 

“ I thought I could,” she whispered, “ hut 
I can’t,—I can’t. I will have to go. I have 
distressed you enough. But you don’t think 
they would scorn us, then ?” 

“ No, indeed I do not.” 

“ You are sure? You are utterly sure?” 

“ Absolutely sure.” 

“ And you think that perhaps God will not 
let our actions j)ain them ?” 

“ I think it most likely.” 

“And you really think that they would 
not have contempt for us ?” 

Trehune lifted his eyes and looked full at 
her for the first time. 

“We might have it for ourselves,” he said, 
slowly. 

She began to shiver from head to foot. 
Her teeth chattered so that she could scarcely 
speak. 

“Then you think it is wrong to marry 
again ?” 

“ It would be wrong for me. I do not say 
that it would be wrong for you.” 


200 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ Why do you think it would be wrong for 
you ?” 

Again the passion in him broke forth: 

“ Because I would be a cowardly hound to 
marry another woman, with my heart in the 
grave of one who has been all to me that 
earth can ever be. That is why !” 

She laid her face against her outstretched 
arm and was silent for some moments. Finally 
she said, in a weak voice,— 

“ You think it is impossible that you should 
ever love again ?” 

“ I am sure of it,” he replied, almost with 
violence. 

“ I was sure of it,—once,” she said, gently. 

There came another silence, which she 
again broke: 

“Are you never lonely? Do you never 
yearn for a closer human love and sympathy 
than you have now ?” she asked him. 

“Yes, but I glory in thinking that what I 
am enduring is all for her sake, and that some 
day we will smile over it together.” 

“You are very, very certain,” said Bar¬ 
bara, wistfully. “ It all seems so far—so 
desolately cold and far—to me. It is like 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 201 

trying to warm one’s hands at a star. And 
then you have your children,—her children. 
They must be like her in one way or another. 
They speak to you with her voice; they look 
at you with her eyes. I never had a child, 
you know. Look: if you were to meet 
another woman just like her in every way, 
in every line of form and face, in every ges¬ 
ture, in every trick of voice and smile,—a 
woman who was even lovelier than she had 
been,—would you love her ?” 

“ That is impossible,” replied Trehune. 

“Never say anything is impossible,” said 
Barbara, sharply,—“ you who believe in 
heaven and the meeting of wives and hus¬ 
bands. No, forgive me: I am in such pain, 
—I am so unhappy. Then you prefer to lead 
a life of absolute loneliness and heart-hunger 
to defrauding her of even one thought ?” 

“Yes,” said Trehune. 

“ Then you are a wonderful man,” she said, 
in a tired voice. “ I believe you; but it is 
wonderful,—it is wonderful.” 

She stood up, drawing further on her long 
gloves, and taking her muff from the table. 

“ You have much to forgive me,” she said, 


202 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ and I have much to thank you for. I do 
thank you with all my heart. If you would 
send the little one called Nell over to Rose¬ 
mary sometimes, it would be very good of 
you. I have a doll’s house that belonged to 
me as a little girl, and I understand children : 
I never bore them. You know I think grown 
people bore children far oftener than children 
bore them: don’t you ?” 

“ I will bring her to-morrow,” answered 
Trehune, “ if you will let me come to inquire 
how you are. Won’t you let me walk home 
with you ?” 

“ No, no, thank you very much. I would 
rather be alone. Do you think Nell would 
kiss me if you brought her in here ? No, 
never mind : I look so tall and big in all this 
black, I might frighten her. I will wait 
until I have the doll’s house as the back¬ 
ground. Good-night. You have been so 
good to me. I will not forget,—ever.” 

She stepped out into the late and bitter 
afternoon, and he saw her long black veil 
borne out on the high wind, like a sombre 
pennon, as she walked across the frozen 
fields. 


THE QUICK OR THE BEAD? 


203 


XVII. 

It was on the evening of her interview 
with Trehune that Barbara wrote Dering 
the following letter: 

“ Do not think that I write to you in cold¬ 
ness. Do not think that you have all the suf¬ 
fering. I tell you I have sounded the blackest 
depths of the waters of Marah, and my feet 
have sunk into the mud at their bottom. I 
do not seem able to feel. I do not suffer 
while I write: I only know that I have suf¬ 
fered. I hope I may always have this stone 
in my breast instead of a heart. I am cowed 
utterly. I shrink from grief with every fibre 
of soul and body. I shrink from giving it to 
any one else; but I must,—I must! Oh, my 
dear, you will see that I am right, that this is 
the only way it all could end. You could 
not respect me; I could not respect myself; 
I would be always haunted by the feeling that 
you had a secret contempt for me. And you 
would have,—you would have. After the first 
freshness of it all was over, you would begin 
to think, ‘ If I die, I wonder who this woman 


204 THE QUICK OB THE DEADt 

will marry?’ You would look at your friends 
and think, 4 Perhaps he will be her husband 
some day,’ or, ‘ Perhaps that other one.’ We 
could not look forward to meeting after death. 
Why, think of the mockery of it! the hideous, 
hideous horror of it! Heaven, did I say ? 
Could there be a more absolute hell ? It is 
my idea of hell. My dear, my dear , it is 
better that you should try to forget me. Or 
no! I cannot say that; I cannot honestly wish 
it. Oh, God! yesterday I was afraid I was 
going mad, to-day I almost wish that I were. 
Oh, how unnecessarily cruel all this seems! 
I try so hard to be good, and to see a reason 
for it, but I cannot!—I cannot! I can only 
crouch, and cry with poor David, ‘All thy 
billows and waves have gone over me.’ And 
yet it seems even worse than that. Sometimes 
it comes over me like an awful earth-wave, 
crushing, stifling, with no crisp coolness as of 
water, which refreshes even while it drowns. 
The color and warmth are gone from life for 
me; only the beauty of form remains, as in 
the cold naked grace of a statue. You will 
thank me for this some day; and when that 
day comes—oh, God !—I will pray for death 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 205 

even more frantically than I do now. If I 
could only make you understand! If I could 
only bring you to some comprehension of 
what I am enduring! Dear, be good to me, 
—be gentle. You must go out of my life,— 
you must! It would bring you only sorrow. 
I know bow morbid all this will seem to you; 
I know bow you will try to convince me. But 
do not try: only help me; only be good to 
me. Ob, if you only knew how I suffer! 
Dear, I pray God to be always with you,—to 
love you,—to keep you; and I pray him to 
teach you to understand and feel grateful to 

“ Barbara.” 

This letter, which bad been misplaced by 
bis man, was banded to Dering as be was 
getting into a cab on bis way to look in at a 
bachelor dinner given by one of his friends. 
He put it in his breast unopened, smiling at 
this piece of sentiment, but pleased neverthe¬ 
less every time that the stiff paper made itself 
felt against bis flesh. 

As it was three o’clock a.m. when be 
entered on the scene of the feast, be was not 
unprepared for the reception which greeted 
18 


206 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

him, and bore with equanimity the process 
of being tripped up and sat upon by three 
hilarious “ dudes,” who afterwards stood him 
upon a silver tray and marched solemnly 
around the room, singing snatches from 
“ Harrigan and Hart’s” last masterpiece. 
Dering, who was jolly and absolutely good- 
tempered through it all, had a strange feeling 
that Barbara’s letter was being desecrated, 
and made his escape as soon as possible, after 
assisting at a bombardment of a picture of 
Washington with jam tarts. He was a little 
astonished, on thinking it over during the 
drive back to his club, that the whole per¬ 
formance had bored him rather. He had 
awakened suddenly, like a man from a raptur¬ 
ous dream which had overtaken him on some 
humming summer noon while perusing the 
last masterpiece in the way of witty French 
romance,—had awakened drowsy, still thrill¬ 
ing from those vague yet blood-quicking ex¬ 
periences, to take up the dropped thread of 
his story, and, behold! Atropos or some as 
clever shear-clacker had snipped the twist! 
The dream had spoiled the reality. The 
bitten place in the forbidden fruit had become 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 207 

brown, leathery, unpalatable. Wasps were 
nibbling it, an ant or two scuttled over its 
sleek skin. In liis dream the fruit was gold 
as his love’s hair, and sweet as honey through 
and through. What he took into his mouth 
grew again as fair, as luscious in its ac¬ 
customed place, before he had swallowed the 
first morsel. There were flowers and fruit on 
the same branch,—Spring and Summer akiss 
in the same season,—desire and fulfilment 
ever smiling into each other’s untired eyes, 
their right hands clasped, the other two free 
among the leaves of that wonderful tree 
which grows in the blessed garden and which 
is called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good 
and Evil. But we must drink down the 
sword-flame of the angel who guards it, to 
enter and eat of its fruit, so being born 
again; having died of fire, and from fire 
having sprung again. 

By the time that he reached the club, 
Dering had persuaded himself that the letter 
against his heart contained a summons from 
Barbara to return at once to Virginia. He 
then opened and read it. When he had 
taken in the last word, “ Barbara,” he went 


208 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD ? 

and deliberately lighted two or three extra 
gas-burners, and in this blaze of light sat 
down to think. An ugly, snarling expression 
came over his face, a sort of grin of savage 
distaste and pain, and he began to catch his 
breath nervously with a hoarse sound that 
was neither sobbing nor laughter, but akin to 
both. He sat there, without moving, for 
some two hours, then deliberately undressed, 
got into a cold bath, and went to bed. In 
three minutes he was sleeping heavily, from 
sheer exhaustion, his face, haggard with pain, 
turned full to the glare of the lighted burners. 

The next day Barbara received this tele¬ 
gram : 

“ Letter received. Will answer it in a few 
days. Hope you are better. J. D.” 

And it was on the day after that she read 
in the Herald the following notice: 

“A most serious and possibly fatal acci¬ 
dent occurred to-day on Broadway. A por¬ 
tion of some scaffolding fell upon the head 
and shoulders of Mr. John Dering, bruising 
and cutting him severely. He was at once 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 209 

taken to his club, having no residence in 
town, but is reported dangerously ill, and his 
mother, who is now at Cannes for her health, 
has been cabled for.” 

Barbara rang at once for Bameses. 

“ I want a man to go immediately with this 
telegram,” she said, in a clear, slightly loud 
voice, signing the wire as she spoke. It ran 
to this effect: 

“ Shall I come to you ? Can leave this 
afternoon’s train. B.” 

After some agonizing hours of suspense, she 
received this answer: 

“It was my cousin who was hurt. Fortu¬ 
nately, got your telegram while I was there. 
Thanks so much. I write at once. 

“J. D.” 

“Wait!” cried Barbara to Bameses, who 
was leaving the room. “This must go too. 
Send some one else. They must go now,— 
this moment,—before it gets too dark.” 

She snatched up a bit of paper, and wrote, 

with scrawling eagerness,— 

18 * 


210 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ Then come to me!” (No signature.) 

She sat down to the piano and played a 
wild, whirling waltz of Chopin, stopping now 
and then to laugh hysterically with her cheek 
against her hands on the music-rack. She 
paced the room, singing snatches of frenzied 
Polish folk-songs. Her color rose, and her 
heavy hair, loosening from its ridgy coil, 
swung far below her waist. She smiled look¬ 
ing down as the hair-pins fell on the carpet 
in her swaying walk. 

“ They say one’s sweetheart thinks of one 
when one’s hair-pins fall out,” she said, aloud. 

Suddenly she paused, and stood still in the 
centre of the great room. Only her glittering 
eyes laughed from her grave face. Then her 
lids dropped; she seemed to grow into marble, 
as Galatea grew from marble into flesh. 

After a while she rang the bell again for 
Kameses: “ I wish my things taken out of 
this room,—everything. You can put them 
in the little room over the west wing, where I 
used to stay, years ago. Begin now.” 

When this devastation was complete, and 
not even her dressing-gown remained to give 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 211 

an air of individuality to the little brass bed, 
she turned and sent that long, slow gaze 
about her which she had bestowed on the 
room and its contents during the evening of 
her arrival. 

She shivered, holding a shoulder in either 
hand and pressing her crossed arms closely 
to her. 

“ It looks like a corpse that—has—been— 
robbed,” she said, whisperingly, and pausing 
between each word. “ It looks horrible! It 
looks horrible,—horrible !” 

She then went out into the hall, and re¬ 
turned with the same mass of white satin 
and tulle beside which she had watched on 
that bitter night, not long ago, closing and 
locking the door after her. The day had 
been spring-like, and there had been no fire 
lighted in the large fireplace, but she seemed 
to be suddenly chilly, for she went and 
kneeled down upon the hearth, taking some 
splinters of dry wood which lay in a wicker 
basket near by, and placing them as though 
for kindling. As she did this, she glanced 
restlessly over her shoulder once or twice, 
then rose, and, lifting the mass of drapery, 


212 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

laid it upon the blazing bits of wood. It 
caught smoulderingly in one or two places, 
scorched and shrivelled, but died out in those 
clustering sparks which children delight to 
call “ people going into church.” Then, 
stooping forward, she blew upon it after the 
manner of Raineses; but this produced no 
effect, beyond making her eyes smart with 
the smoke-puffs which rushed out into her 
face. She became excited, nervous, pouring 
a box of matches out into the dimly-gleaming 
folds and throwing a lighted match among 
them. Still they only smouldered dully; 
whereupon she began to look eagerly around 
for paper of any kind. 

Every available scrap was thrust into the 
fireplace, and the fresh bits of light-wood 
which she began to place here and there 
burned cheerily. Still the thick satin only 
curled and shrivelled like a thing in pain. 

Barbara pulled open the doors of her desk, 
and seized upon any inflammable thing which 
came to hand; and it was at this moment that 
her eye fell upon a large, brass-bound box of 
oak which stood far under the low table. She 
dragged it out, panting in her excitement and 


THE QUICK OR TIIE DEAD? 213 

suspense. It was full of letters, yellowish in 
tone and addressed in faded brown ink, and 
as she looked at them a strange expression 
came into her face,—an expression of grief, 
of fright, of resolve. 

She took a great mass of them in her 
arms and approached the fire, afterwards 
tearing them from their envelopes and crum¬ 
pling them so that they would ignite more 
quickly. 

“ All at once,—all at once!” she kept whis¬ 
pering to herself, with the insistent iterance 
of a person in delirium. She went back and 
forth to the heavy box seven or eight times. 
There was a great blaze now in the throat of 
the wide chimney; the light tulle whizzed in 
flakes of fire up its black maw, and the satin 
began to flame in places and to rise and fall 
with the heat, as though panting with a 
weird life. 

“ All at once,—all at once,—everything,— 
everything!” whispered Barbara, as though 
to encourage it. She kneeled and looked on 
with distended eyes, pushing every now and 
then another letter among the writhing folds. 
Lastly she took the miniature which she 


214 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

always wore from her throat, and laid it face 
down upon the mass. 

“ Good-by,” she said, in a clear voice, 
moving backward to the door, but keeping 
her eyes upon that strangely-warmed hearth¬ 
stone. 

“ Good-hy,—good-hy,—good-by,” she kept 
repeating, in an expressionless tone. She 
unlocked the door, withdrew the key, and, 
passing out, relocked it on the other side. 

XVIII. 

Dering’s reply came early the next morn¬ 
ing: 

“ Expect me to-morrow via Charlottes¬ 
ville.” (No signature.) 

Late in the afternoon Barbara put on her 
girlhood’s walking-dress, and, taking Bam- 
eses with her, started off for a w T alk,—or, 
rather one should say, a run. She flew over 
the frozen ground, laughing, stumbling, catch¬ 
ing her feet in knotted brambles. Poor Mar¬ 
tha Ellen, whose hand she grasped, panted 
along as best she might, also laughing hys- 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 215 

terically, the yellowish glow in the west 
catching the exhausted roll of her white eye- 
globes. 

“I feel like a little girl, Rameses!” said 
Barbara. 

“You sut’n’y kin run like one!” replied 
Raineses. 

“ Yes, I can run !—I can run !” gasped her 
mistress, merrily. “ Why do you drag so ? 
Here’s the hill where we used to go black- 
berrying when we were children. We used 
to wear pink tissue-paper court trains and 
paint our faces with poke-berries: don’t you 
remember ? Tra-la-la! tra-la-la! Keep up, 
—keep up, you monkey ! You’re dragging 
me back all the time! Ugh ! it’s cold! Do 
you ever wish you were a little girl again, 
Ramie ?” 

Poor Rameses was past replying. 

A rich purple-blue dusk had sunk down 
over the land, and the gleam of the frozen 
ice-pond in a far field shone desolately forth 
from tangled patches of orange-colored wild 
grass. They could hardly see the tone of the 
dark-red soil beneath their feet. 

“ Faster! faster, you goblin!” urged Bar- 


216 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

bara; but Rameses, desperate with fatigue, 
snatched away her hand, and her mistress 
dashed on without her. 

She came in about half an hour later, 
flushed, brilliant, to find the small room over 
the west wing glittering with wax candles, 
and the curtains, of old green silk splashed 
with large cabbage-roses, drawn over the 
narrow windows. Throwing her dog-whip 
and gloves on the bed, she went whistling 
out into the narrow corridor that led to this 
room, and, with a candle on the floor, 
searched in some closets which lined the 
walls on either side. She went back and 
forth, carrying several armfuls of different 
fabrics to her room and tossing them on 
chairs and sofa. 

This room was delightful,—small, square, 
with a low ceiling ornamented in white 
plaster-work, its walls wainscoted in oak 
within three feet of the ceiling, wherefrom 
hung old stone engravings, wasliily tinted, of 
girls and rabbits, girls and doves, girls and 
kittens in baskets, girls and young partridges, 
all dressed in scant white gowns, their unique 
figures apparently held together with diffi- 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 217 

culty by tight bands of bright-blue ribbon. 
A low toilet-table of French gilt, with a 
large mirror framed in gilt grapes and Cu¬ 
pids, stood between the two windows, and the 
six candles in the sconces on either side sent 
clear cross-lights upon the face and form of 
Barbara, as she stood before it, twisting up 
the long masses of her hair into a half-curled 
knot at the back of her fine head. 

In twenty minutes Dering would arrive. 
Her windows overlooked the gravelled car¬ 
riage-drive, and the first sound of wheels 
would reach her ears. She selected from the 
many dresses on the sofa one of rich, peach- 
bloom-colored Indian silk, a sort of tea-gown, 
half loose, half tight, through whose folds 
the lines of her full figure appeared and dis¬ 
appeared with every movement. From her 
fingers she slipped every ring, holding up her 
long hands and shaking them about to make 
them whiter. The wide sleeves fell back, 
showing her arms, which were smooth as 
those of a child warm with sleep. She 
laughed and kissed them, first one, then the 
other, still shaking her hands lightly above 
her head. 


19 


218 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

Then came a sound of wheels. In a mo¬ 
ment she was out in the darkness of the nar¬ 
row corridor. She felt as though the floor 
rose beneath her feet and pressed her against 
the slanting roof. She could scarcely breathe, 
and the air seemed stifling. In a sort of panic 
she reached the great hall, and shrunk down 
shivering in a corner of the stairway, where 
she could hear Dering’s voice in the hall, the 
greetings and exclamations of Miss Fridiswig, 
and the whimpering of the greyhounds. She 
waited there until she heard him close the 
door of his room, when she rose and half-way 
descended the stairs, rushing back again to 
her coigne of vantage as she heard some one 
approaching. The two greyhounds found her 
out, and crouched down beside her, licking at 
her handsome bare throat and ringless hands, 
while the sleet rattled intermittently against 
the small panes in a narrow window just over 
her head, and she could hear Dering moving 
about in his room, which was near the foot 
of the stairs. Presently she stole down and 
into a long apartment on the opposite side 
of the hall. It was hung in yellow silk, 
and its polished oak floor was strewn with 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 219 

rugs in dull blues and orange tones on a white 
ground. There were many low lounging- 
chairs, and divans heaped with differently- 
colored cushions, and the light of the wood 
fire licked the glaze on much very beautiful 
china. She threw herself into a drift of crim¬ 
son pillows, and let her hands fall palm to 
palm between her knees, brooding upon the 
broken fire, whose lilac flames palpitated over 
a bed of gold-veined coals. 

It was not long before the door opened to 
admit Dering, who entered, closing it care¬ 
fully behind him, and approached the fire 
with palms outstretched. 

“ You must be nearly frozen,” said Barbara, 
with originality. 

“ Yes, I am,” admitted Dering, also with a 
strong flavor of the same element. 

“Have you had some tea? I ordered 
some to be arranged for you in the dining¬ 
room.” 

“Yes, thanks. I have had several cups. 
Miss Fridiswig kindly poured them out for 
me.” 

“Is it quite warm enough in here for 
you?” 


220 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“Oh, quite, thanks. It’s wonderful how 
you keep this old house so comfortable.” 

“ Yes, isn’t it ? But it is quite comfortable, 
I think. One can’t say that of many Vir¬ 
ginia country houses. Do sit down. You 
look as though you were just going away.” 

“ I’m not, however.” 

“Then sit down. You make me nervous. 
It must be dreadfully stormy in New York, 
isn’t it?” 

“ Very. You know it’s snowing now out¬ 
side.” 

“ Sleeting, isn’t it ?” 

“ Both, I think.” 

Suddenly Dering turned, leaning over the 
arm of his chair, and resting both hands on 
the arm of hers. She could see his lips quiver¬ 
ing, and the dilation of fiery eyes and nostrils. 

“ Barbara, you sent for me,” he said. 

“Yes, I did,” she answered, not shrinking, 
with her eyes full on his. 

“ What for ?” he went on. 

“For—this!” she said, in a whisper more 
stirring than any tone of voice, and, throw¬ 
ing herself on her knees in front of him, 
held out to him her bare and beautiful arms. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 221 

“Husli! Wait,” said Dering: “ let me 
think. Don’t move: let me think.” He 
drew away from her, breathing brokenly, 
with an expression of keen pain on his face, 
and they crouched thus for some moments, 
gazing at each other like two tigers about to 
spring. 

All at once he stooped forward, and, stand¬ 
ing erect, lifted her from her feet upon his 
breast. 

“You love me?—you love me, then, my 
tigress ?” 

“ I love you.” 

“ You are sure of yourself? You are sure 
of yourself?” 

“ Yes, yes.” 

“No, you are not sure; you cannot be. 
After that letter,—good God!—that damna¬ 
ble letter!—how can I be sure, after that 
letter?” 

“ But / am sure; I am sure.” 

“You are changed, you mean. You may 
change again. How can I tell ? No ! I see 

it as clearly- Here! listen, you wild 

thing!—take your hand from my mouth. 
Ah, you tigress!—you tigress ! No. Here— 



222 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

stoj)!—listen !— listen. You read that thing 
in the Herald about Jack Dering, and you 
thought at first that it was me, and your pity 

got the better of- No! stop, I say! 

You’ve got to listen. There, I’m sorry if I 
hurt you, but you must listen. How beauti¬ 
ful you are!—what hair! what eyes ! what 
lips! But I will speak,—do you hear? I 
am stronger than you; I am your master: I 

will speak. It was pity-” 

“Jock! kiss me!” 

“ It was pity. You were sorry for that 

cruel letter. You were-” 

“ Jock ! kiss me!” 

“ You thought you would atone. Oh, I 
know some few things about women. There, 
you must keep still until I finish. I want 
you to understand that I loathe your pity,— 
I abominate it! Is that plain enough? I 

would rather-” 

“ Jock ! kiss me!” 

“ I would rather go away this moment, and 
never see you again in this world or the next, 

than compromise on pity ! I tell you I-” 

“ Kiss me!” 

“ I would rather-” 








THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 223 

“ Kiss me!” 

“I would rather see you belong to some 
one else than-” 

“ Kiss me ! Kiss me!” 

“ Than take one iota less love than I give. 
I-” 

“ Ah, kiss me, Jock!” 

“ I will have my love returned in full,—in 
full y —do you understand ? I am as proud as 
the devil, and unless you-” 

“ I love you more than anything I have 
ever dreamed of,—more than anything in 
earth or heaven,—more than anything alive 
or dead,—or dead ! You understand ? Now 
kiss me!” 

He released her pliant waist and lifted her 
face to him with both hands. 

XIX. 

After this interview followed a week of 
delight such as is sometimes granted to two 
mortals, one of whom obtains a love long 
fought for, one of whom yields to a love long 
fought against. Into the winter of their dis¬ 
content had stolen a mood as warmly ex¬ 
quisite as were the spring-like days which 





224 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

interrupted the actual winter weather, and 
which inveigled the lilac-buds into swelling 
forth prematurely, and filled the tops of the 
horse-chestnuts and peach-trees with fragile, 
rose-hued blossoms. 

Barbara ceased altogether that morbid habit 
of self-analysis which is the curse of our cen¬ 
tury, and gave herself without questioning into 
the outstretched arms of her sudden happiness. 
We nowadays self-analysts resemble nothing 
so much as a man who, hearing a bird sing 
on the branch of a fruit-tree in flower, goes 
out and breaks away the branch, hoping to get 
a nearer view of the singer. The bird flies, 
and the blossoms are never fruit. The man 
has the fact, the dead, fruitless branch, in 
his hand, but that which made its beauty, 
the blossoms scattered, and the sweet-voiced, 
winged thing, are beyond the reach of his 
scalpel. 

Dering, who had wooed one woman, found 
that he had won twenty. To-day she was a 
girl in her teens hanging her head beneath 
the first kisses of her first lover, to-morrow 
she was a laughing witch who wanted neither 
kisses nor lover, only a sympathetic comrade 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 225 

who would appreciate her vagaries, which 
were sometimes most unexpected, but always 
charming. One morning she would come to 
him grave-eyed, subdued, to speak with a cer¬ 
tain awe of their future together, the same 
afternoon she would forbid any allusion save 
to the present, and in the evening tolerate no 
mention of either, demanding Othello-like 
anecdotes over which she would become 
breathless and excited, kneeling beside him 
and looking up with eyes gloriously dark. 
Her variety of beauty bewildered him. Her 
very coloring, and the shade of her hair, ap¬ 
peared to change with each mood and cos¬ 
tume, so that one day he seemed affianced to 
an Eastern houri languid in rich embroideries 
among many cushions, and the next followed 
a modern Atalanta through the brown vistas 
of her familiar woods. He never knew 
whether his caresses would be repulsed or 
accepted,—whether his remarks would be re¬ 
ceived with tears or with laughter,—whether 
she would comprehend divinely his half- 
spoken thoughts or wilfully misconstrue his 
most carefully worded expressions. 

Barbara was in a state of the most feverish 


226 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


exhilaration. She scarcely slept. When she 
was alone she sang or whistled like a boy, to 
drown the voices which clamored within her. 
When she was particularly sleepless, she read 
books which Dering had marked, or wrote 
long notes to him, which Itameses placed on 
his pillow before he awoke, and which he an¬ 
swered before dressing. 

The reaction came, however, although she 
fought doggedly against it, and would not 
admit its presence even when it gripped her 
by the heart-strings. Naturally enough, it 
was occasioned by a sudden recognizance of 
the likeness between Dering and her hus¬ 
band. As the just-accepted lover developed 
into the lover at his ease, gestures, expressions, 
and habits thrust upon her with pitiless ex¬ 
actitude the memory of her first wooing. All 
this impressed her with that novelty which is 
sometimes attendant upon an old fact sud¬ 
denly mentioned to another person. He had 
for her the identical love-words to which her 
virginal heart had thrilled in the days gone; 
his caresses were the same; his half-laughing, 
lialf-serious allusions to himself as a married 
man,—even his kisses, and his tempestuous 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 227 

way of lifting her from her feet upon his 
breast. And yet he himself—he the man, 
the individual—was absolutely different,— 
more masterful, more imperious, more intol¬ 
erant of many things. She felt like the 
assistant in a murder, whose accomplice ad¬ 
dressed her always, with ghastly mockery, in 
the tones and manner of their victim. She 
could not escape; there was no possible way 
of egress from this labyrinth into which she 
had wandered with open eyes, for the clue had 
dropped from her hands when she raised them 
to clasp the throat of her new lover. 

One morning, as he was romping with the 
greyhounds upon the lawn, waiting for her to 
appear, she rushed out towards him, her hair 
half loose in the soft wind, which smelled of 
young leaves and the wool of some sheep that 
were cropping the withered grass under the 
acacias. Her face was pulsing with color, her 
eyes bright and eager as those of a dog that 
foresees a walk. 

“ I have such an idea!” she cried, taking 
his arm into her ungloved hands and pressing 
against his side. “ We have never been on a 
straw-stack together. Let us go. Let us run 


228 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

all the way. There is such a beauty in the 
mill-field! And it has been dry and warm 
so long, it will be so nice to slide upon. It is 
so pretty there; and we can hear the mill¬ 
wheel : Aunt Caroline is haying some flour 
ground for brown-bread to-day.” 

They ran, laughing and teasing one another 
like two children, along the broad red road 
that curved beyond the back of the house, 
overhung by great catalpa and black-walnut 
trees, and hemmed in by an unusually eccen¬ 
tric snake fence. The hills showed a faint 
green bloom here and there along their sides, 
and the young apple-trees in the new orchard 
held out now and then a silvery small leaf. 
They reached the straw-stack, and began to 
scramble up, arriving at the top panting and 
covered with dust and bits of straw. She sank 
into the arms which he held out for her, and, 
pressing down the collar of his silk shirt, 
rested her wordless lips in the hollow at the 
base of his strong throat. 

“ I love you,—I love you,” said each, cling¬ 
ing to the other; and then she settled con¬ 
tentedly down, with her head against his 
knees, and let one of the greyhound pups 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 229 

curl up between her languid, outstretched 
arms. 

“ Suppose Mr. Beanpoddy could see you 
now!” she said, after some moments of this 
delicious inertia, “ or some of your dude 
friends! I would like to see the puppies 
attack their spatts. Do you suppose any¬ 
thing ever smelled quite as nice as a straw- 
stack ?” 

“ Yes,—your hair does. What do you put 
on it?” 

“ Soap and water.” 

“ Oh, Barbara! do you want me to believe 
all this is only due to Pears and your cistern ?” 

“ Indeed, indeed I don’t perfume my hair, 
Jock. I think it’s so vulgar. I hope it doesn’t 
smell like that!” 

“ Like what ?” 

“ As though it were all horrid and Lubin’s- 
Extracty.” 

“That is as original a compound verb as 
the one Punch’s little girl made use of a year 
ago.” 

“ Oh, yes, I know,—the one about Liebig’s- 
Extract-of-Beefing it. Jock, I think it would 
be so charming to slide down here together.” 

20 


230 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


“Do yon? Well-” 

They began their descent, first sedately, 
then in a whirling rush which landed them 
under an avalanche of loose straw. 

“ Isn’t—it—fun!” she gasped, as they 
climbed up again. 

“ Your hair’s down. Lord ! how long it is! 
I could tie you to me with it. Look here.” 

He divided the heavy masses and drew 
them about his throat, then released her, hor¬ 
rified at the sudden whiteness of her face. 

“ Barbara ! what’s the matter ?” 

“ Nothing,—I,—nothing,—nothing at all.” 

“ That’s absolute nonsense, my dear. You 
know you really can’t put me off in that 

absurd way. Barbara-” He paused, a 

sudden look of intelligence creeping over his 
face. “ See here, Barbara: I’ve thought 
something once or twice. Are you trying to 
fancy that I’m Valentine Pomfret?” 

At this she turned on him a look so full of 
reproach, anguish, and entreaty that he was 
frozen with a sense of his brutality. 

“ Barbara, forgive me!” he said, reaching 
out for her; but she held him away, with her 
open hand. 




THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


231 


“ It was so cruel!” she managed to whisper 
at last, with chattering teeth. 

“ My God ! I know it was! Can you for¬ 
give me ?” 

She withdrew her hand, and began press¬ 
ing it with short convulsive movements upon 
the other. 

“ Can’t you forgive me ?” said poor Dering. 

Still she sat wordless, her handsome throat 
swelling with some repressed feeling. 

“ I—I—have tried to think that,” she said, 
after a wdiile. 

Dering’s face changed. 

“ You have ?” he said, in a low voice. 

“Yes, but—I—could not. I found— 

I-” She stopped a moment, and then 

went on, looking steadily at him, “I found 
I did not want to.” 

“ Barbara!” 

“ I did not want to think of you as any 
one else. I did not want any one else. I 
wanted you.” She paused again, adding, in 
a whisper, “ I want you.” 

He took her in his arms, and she felt the 
great throbs of his heart against her face. 

“ I want you !—I want you!” she went on, 



232 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

incoherently,—“ forever,—forever,— forever! 
Only you! Oh, Jock, if you—if you die, you 
know I will be true to you f Hush! don’t 
answer. How can you know ? My God! 
how can you know ?” 

“ I do know,” said Dering, stoutly, braced 
by the belief which sustains every lover,—the 
belief that the woman who loves him loves 
him more, and better, and differently from the 
way in which she has ever loved or ever will 
love any man again. 

“ I do know, my darling,” he repeated; but 
she sobbed on, clinging to him: “ No, no! 
you cannot! you cannot! And I—I can never 
prove it to you!” 

“ I would not have a proof. I do not want 
one. I would not accept it if you could give 
it to me. I wish I could make you under¬ 
stand how thoroughly I comprehend all your 
struggles and feelings. But you must not 
think that you only suffer.” 

“ It is because I grieve you that I suffer,” 
she replied, still hiding her face. “All the 
little pleasure that I have given you cannot 
pay for the pain. You think I don’t know 
that; but, oh, I do !—I do !” 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


233 


“You only give me pain when you speak 
in this way,” said Dering, caressing her bowed 
head. “You only give me pain when you 
think that you are anything but a joy, a 
blessing to me,—the very light of my life. I 
not only love you, I actually adore you ! Why, 
I swore once that, no matter what a woman 
was to me, I would never kiss her feet; and 
look here! and here!” And, before she could 
prevent him, he had stooped and pressed his 
lips, now on one foot, now on the other; then, 
kneeling up, he kissed her dress, her knees, 
her waist, her arms, while she bent over him, 
panting, intoxicated, half reassured. 

It was in some such way that nearly all 
their misunderstandings ended. 


XX. 

It was quite late on an afternoon of the 
next week that a sudden heavy shower over¬ 
took them while out riding As they were 
near the pretty, Gothic church of the neigh¬ 
borhood, they fastened their horses and took 
shelter within its doors, which they found 
open. After about twenty minutes of cease¬ 
less downpour, Dering insisted on remounting 


234 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

his horse and riding back to Rosemary for a 
trap of some kind, and thus Barbara was left 
to a possible hour of rather dreary waiting. 
She became tired of her post on an old oak 
settle near the open doors, and wandered up 
into the organ-loft. It was gray with cob¬ 
webs and littered with melancholy bits of 
bread soaked in strychnine, which had been 
left there for the delectation of the rats. She 
found the organ unlocked, and thought she 
would see if she could get the sexton to pump 
for her, so went cautiously down the crooked 
and dusty stairway, wondering at the sudden 
darkness which enveloped it, to find the 
church doors closed. Her heart leaped vio¬ 
lently, then settled into heavy beating, and, 
looking back into the darkening church, she 
felt with both hands for the fastening. It 
was secure, and from the outside. Barbara, 
who had from her childhood entertained an 
especial horror of being locked into even a 
bright and day lighted room, felt a cold horror, 
as strong as it was unreasoning, creep up within 
her. She ran hurriedly out into the aisle of 
the church, which was not so gloomy as that 
little passage near the door, and stood still, 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


235 


with her hand on the back of one of the pews, 
trying to think what she had best do. It 
was not long before she remembered that 
through the vestry-room she might make 
her escape, and, hurrying forward, found the 
entrance to it also locked. 

The rain was now falling more heavily than 
ever, and sheets of bluish lightning threw into 
pale relief the tall windows, with their lead- 
framed panes of glass, showed her the large 
black letters on the three white marble tablets 
over the altar, but failed to penetrate the 
arches of the vaulted roof, from which the 
gloom seemed to hang like dust-clogged cob¬ 
webs. 

“ I will be quite quiet, I will be quite col¬ 
lected,’’ she said to herself. “ I will go in my 
pew and sit down. Perhaps I will fall asleep, 
and then Jock will come and laugh at me, 
and we will have such a gay, cosey drive 
home together.” There were other thoughts 
which came huddling about her, whimpering 
for admittance, and which, when refused, 
threatened with ugly grins and cries of rage. 
“ I will be quite quiet,—quite calm,” she re¬ 
peated, this time aloud. “ I will take this 


236 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD ? 

prayer-book in my hands and kneel down,— 
and then I will count a hundred ; and by that 
time Jock will come” She kneeled down, 
resting her forehead on the large, old-fashioned 
prayer-book, and listening to the gushing of 
the rain from the sloping roof 

The lightning increased, grew sharper in its 
darts, and was now followed by low thunder. 
All at once a noise attracted her,—a rattling 
at the church doors. Starting up, she ran 
down the long aisle, dragging over a foot- 
bench in her haste, but undeterred by its 
echoing crash. 

“ It’s me — it’s Barbara, Jock. Open, 
quick!” 

A renewed rattling was her only answer, 
followed by a long, plaintive whine from the 
dog outside that was scratching for admit¬ 
tance. This unexpected reply so startled her 
that she could not repress a broken cry, and 
rushed back again into the body of the church, 
involuntarily lifting her hands to her ears 
as she ran. A beseeching and heart-broken 
howl from the lonely dog followed her, its 
quavering fall absorbed in a ponderous roll of 
thunder which jarred along under her feet. 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 237 

Then came a heavier rush of rain, and the 
sound of a wind rousing itself along the sod¬ 
den leaf-carpet outside. Only the general out¬ 
lines of the reading-desks and the great tablets 
were now to be discerned, save in the flickers 
of lightning which seemed to soak with an 
unnatural gleam all objects upon which they 
fell. Again the dog howled, and again the 
thunder drowned its long note. 

“He is nearly here now,” said Barbara, 
who was again seated in her own pew. “ He 
is just driving through Machunk Creek. 
Now he is coming up the long hill. Now he 
lias turned into the lane. Now he is coming 
into the church-yard. Now-” 

She was here startled by the baffled dog, 
who leaped up at the window near which she 
was sitting, hung by its paws on the ledge 
for a moment, and then dropped whining 
back upon the ground without. The sight 
of that dark head and those clutching paws 
horrified her inexpressibly, and she rushed 
and crouched down on the altar steps, trem¬ 
bling in every fibre. The next lightning- 
flare that swept the church fixed the great 
letters on the white tablets upon her inner 



238 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

lids, and thrust upon her a memory against 
which she had been fighting ever since find¬ 
ing herself locked in, and which coursed 
backward through her veins as though ice- 
water had been injected into them. 

The last time that she had followed the 
outlines of those sombre characters, she had 
been standing before this altar as a bride. 
She could see the whole scene as distinctly 
as though she were at the very moment play¬ 
ing her part in it,—could see the kindly, 
earnest face of the minister who had married 
them, even to a wart upon one of his nostrils, 
and a curious habit he had of drawing his 
large chin into folds,—could see her father’s 
face, with its anxious expression and softly- 
curling gray hair, through which the morn¬ 
ing light shone whitely, and which contrasted 
so well with his fresh and wind-reddened skin, 
—saw her husband’s hand as it held her own 
(she had not looked at his face during the 
ceremony),—saw the little rip in one of her 
lace flounces, where it had caught in the car¬ 
riage door,—heard the voice of the man who 
had been her husband,—a voice rich and 
earnest and unusual,—“ I Valentine take thee 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD f 239 

Barbara to my wedded wife, to have and to 
hold, from this day forward, for better for 
worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and 
in health, to love and to cherish till death 
us do part.” Ah! she heard more. She 
felt him lean to her when they had stepped 
into the carriage and were out of sight and 
hearing of all others,—felt the very breath of 
his words against her cheek : 

“ Death will not part us, Barbara. We 
will laugh in his face, my Barbara,—my 
wife,—my Barbara,—my brave girl. What 
is Death to Love ? It will be only a little, 
lonely waiting for whichever of us goes first. 
He cannot part us, sweetheart; he cannot 
part us.” 

She thought she heard his voice close at 
her ear: 

“ Death cannot part us, Barbara.” 

“Now he is coming through the double 
gate,” she said, aloud. “Now he's driving 
very fast over that good bit of road. Now 
lie's turning into the Greysons' field. Now 
he is coming up the church hill. Now he is 
turning in at the gate.” 

The dog under the window howled again, 


240 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

and again the voice at her ear seemed to say, 
as though to cheer her,— 

“ Death cannot part us, Barbara.” 

She kneeled up, grasping the altar rail 
with both hands, and making a tremendous 
effort at self-control. “Dear God, please 
take care of me, and bless me, and be good 
to me,” she said, in the childish voice which 
came to her whenever she was suffering. “ I 
have not done any one any harm. I have 
tried to be good. Please ask Yal to forgive 
me. He does not care for me as a wife any 
longer. Please ask him to think of me 
kindly. Please make him think of me 
kindly. Please make him forget about me. 
Please, if I have done wrong, forgive me. 
Don’t let these thoughts, come to me any 
more, and let Jock come soon. And don’t 
let me have to wait here very long. And 
please be good to me, and show me how to be 
good.” She was rambling on, comforted by 
the mere sound of the words which she ut¬ 
tered, but when she paused to take breath she 
heard more distinctly than ever those words, 
“ Death cannot part us, Barbara.” 

“Oh, please, Yal!—oh, please, Yal!” she 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 241 

began, piteously. “Oh, God, don’t let him 
be angry with me,—for Christ’s sake! Oh, 
Yal, it was so lonely ! I would forgive you . 
I would want you to be happy. We will all 
love each other in heaven, in a different way. 
It was so lonely,—oh, it was so lonely ! You 
don’t know how I missed everything: I had 
to drink my tea all alone, and it was so 
dreadful in the dark nights; and I thought 
of you, and thought of you, until my heart 
seemed bursting. You don’t know how I 
longed for you, Yal. I used to pray you to 
come to me,—you must have heard me,—and 
you never came until now,—until now when it 
seems so dreadful. I wish you would ask God 
to let me die. I wish you would try not to 

hate me, Val. He looked so like you-no, 

that isn’t honest, because afterwards I- 

No ! no! Don’t say it any more, Val! don’t 
say it any more! I will be good. Will you 
take me back? Oh, Val, Val! I cannot do 
it! I cannot marry any one else ! I’m not 
such a bad woman as you think! I can’t 
do that. I couldn’t help wanting to, but I 
can help doing it,—I can help doing it. If 
you will only come to me sometimes! It was 
21 




242 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

so lonely ! I’m afraid of the dark. I missed 
you so,—I was so lonely,—all the time, all 
the time! I won’t marry him, Yal. If you’ll 
only forgive me and take me hack—no, if 
you’ll only forgive me—I’ll do it if you’ll 
only forgive me. Indeed I will! Indeed I 
will! Please, Yal, don’t think I really meant 
to marry him. I never really meant to 
marry him. I thought I did, hut I couldn’t 
have in the bottom of my heart. Oh, I was 
so wicked even to think of it! But you re¬ 
member how I felt at first. Oh, I hated my¬ 
self!—I hated myself! I tried so hard—oh, 
I did try,—I did try. It was because he 
looked like you at first. He looked so like 
you, I thought it was you at first; I thought 
you had come back. I have been so wicked ! 
—so wicked! But I will stop. I will be 
good. Please, Val!—please, Val! Please, 
God, don’t let him laugh at me. Oh, Val, 

don’t laugh at me !-” 

When Dering at first stooped over her, as 
she lay, face down, along the altar steps, he 
thought that she was dead. 




THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 


243 


XXI. 

Barbara was unconscious for several hours, 
and when she at last came to her senses her 
first rational wish was to see Dering. Al¬ 
though it was then midnight, she insisted 
upon being helped into the room where she 
had received him on the evening of his arri¬ 
val, her rich hair hanging down over her 
dressing-gown of white silk, and straying 
here and there among the bluish-gray fur 
with which it was trimmed, like thin veins 
of fire through curling ashes. Her face was 
very pale, her eyes dark, wide, with un¬ 
flickering lids spread above them as though 
held in place by the slightly-lifted eyebrows. 
Dering came and knelt gently and dumbly 
beside her, attempting to lift the loosened 
hands which lay along her lap. She with¬ 
drew them slowly, and clasped them together 
below her breast. 

“ Perhaps I worry you/’ he said, alarmed 
at the dreadful unvaryingness of her attitude 
and expression. “ Suppose we don’t try to 
talk to-night?” 

“ We must talk to-night,” she said, dully. 


244 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ But, dearest, we can say everything just 
as well to-morrow. Let me help you up¬ 
stairs.’’ 

“ There won’t be any to-morrow,” she 
answered, still in the same dull voice. 

Dering tried again to take her hands. 
“ My poor darling! what an awful shock you 
must have had!” 

“ It was very dreadful,” she said. 

“My poor love! I know it was! Won’t 
you give me your hands, darling ? I want to 
hold them and warm them. You look so cold!” 

“Yes,—that is it: I am so cold. Wait: 
you may have one of my hands,—the left one. 

Wait a minute,—until I find-” she was 

groping with tremulous fingers in the breast 
of her gown. “ Here it is,” she said, finally, 
and held out to him her open palm, on which 
lay a plain gold ring. 

“ What is it ? What is this ? What must 
I do ?” said Dering, startled. “ What ring is 
it?” 

“ I want you to put it on. It is my wed¬ 
ding-ring.” 

“ Barbara! Good God! my dear girl, 
what do you mean ? I’m afraid you are 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 245 

awfully ill. Let me call some one. For God’s 
sake, do, there’s a good child!” 

She motioned him to come back. “ Don’t 
call any one. I am not ill. I know exactly 
what I am doing. That is my wedding-ring. 
I took it off. You must put it on again ; you 
must!” she said, with the first note of a rising 
excitement in her voice. 

Dering was very white, and he set his teeth 
until his ears sang. 

“I think you very ill,” he answered, at 
length, in a controlled voice. “ I do not know 
what you mean.” 

“ But I do !” she cried, half rising; “ I do! 
God has told me: he told me in those awful 
hours in the church,—when you did not come 
to me!—when you did not come to me!” 

“ I came as soon as I could. It was pitch- 
dark, and the roads like rivers. Barbara, 
you break my heart when you speak to me 
like this!” 

She looked at him, relapsing once more 
into her first stolidity of voice and manner: 

“ Hearts don’t break. That is what you 
would call a—‘ a chestnut.’ ” She did not 

smile, and continued to look seriously ud at 
21 * 


246 THE QUICK OR THE DEADf 

him, the ring still lying on her relaxed palm. 
He had a horrible revulsion of feeling, and 
felt his mouth beginning to twist into that 
strangely distorted grin which characterized 
him in moments of violent emotion. He 
turned away, pretending to arrange a fold 
in one of the rugs. 

“ It strikes me as almost coarse, the use of 
such an expression at such a time,” he said, 
finally, in rather a hard voice. 

“Does it? Does it?” she said, a little 
curiously. “You know I told you I was 
coarse once-” 

“ Barbara!” was all that he could reply. 

“ I do think I have been honest,” she went 
on. “ I told you word for word how I felt 
about Yal,—how I could not forget him. I 
told you how he haunted me. I told you 
we could never be happy. Women cannot 
forget, even if they want to,—at least, not 
women like me. I think I must be an awful 
thing,—an unnatural thing. I sometimes 
wonder if God made me for an experiment: 
only that couldn’t be if he knows everything 
beforehand, could it? No, please don’t stop 
me; I feel as if I could say it all now, better 



THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 247 

than I ever could again. I saw everything 
this evening in the church. I was so fright¬ 
ened! He spoke to me. I know what I 
must do. I see how wicked I have been. I 
have been coarse: it is wicked for a woman 
to be coarse. I don’t see how you could have 
wanted me. I was his—I was his first—I 
was his wife. I couldn’t be your wife too. I 
couldn’t forget. I burned up my wedding- 
dress and his picture, but something made 
me keep my ring. I know now what made 
me keep it. I have been very wicked. I 
know you will hate me,—you look at me so 
horribly. Somehow I am not afraid: I will 
never be afraid of anything again; I will 
never be-” 

Dering leaned over, seized her firmly by 
the wrists, and pulled her to her feet. Her 
wedding-ring struck sharply on the polished 
floor between them. 

"If you are not mad,” he said, slowly, 
“ you are the most unutterably cruel creature 
I ever imagined.” But his words seemed 
not to impress her. She swayed about in his 
fierce hold, peering from side to side for the 
fallen ring. 



248 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

“ I must not lose that! It’s all I have,” 
she said. “ Won’t you let me go, just until I 
find it?” 

He threw her from him with an inarticulate 
cry, all the more savage for being smothered. 
He felt at that moment that he did hate her, 
and the firelight on her long red hair seemed 
a baleful and odious thing as it glistened and 
moved, with the lithe curves of her figure, 
while she crawled about, looking for her lost 
ring. 

“ I can’t find it!” she said at last, gazing 
helplessly up at him, and kneeling back on 
her heels, with her hands twisted nervously 
together between her knees. “ That’s gone 
too ! I haven’t anything left! I think God 
might let me die !” 

“ Perhaps he thinks you might change your 
mind after you were dead,” suggested Dering, 
savagely. 

But her only answer was to go on groping 
helplessly about, murmuring from time to 
time, “ I can’t find it! I can’t find it! and it’s 
all I have!” 

“ Barbara,” he said, after some moments 
of silent waiting, “ I wish to understand you 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 249 

thoroughly. You wish me to go away ? You 
wish everything to be ended between us ?” 

“I don’t wish anything,” she answered, 
shaking her head with brows drawn piteously 
upward. “ I am only trying to do what is 
right.” 

“ Do you think it is right to ruin a man’s 
whole life through sheer morbidness?” 

“ Oh, you don’t know how I feel! You 
can’t know how I feel! He said death could 
not separate us; and it can’t! Why, I have 
been his wife,—his wife /” 

“Don’t you suppose I know that?” said 
Dering, fiercely. “ How many times do you 
suppose that has come to me ? Good God! 
are women human, I wonder?” 

“ I meant to do right,” she faltered, great 
tears springing to her eyes. “You don’t 
know how dreadful it is to remember that 
you have been one man’s wife, when you are 
thinking of being another’s. I think God 
has been very cruel to me. Oh, he has! he 
has!” 

“ And what do you think he has been to 
me?” said Dering, grinning; then, with a 
strong motion of his arm, as though flinging 


250 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

something hampering from him, “ No! I’ll 

be d-d if I’ll shift it all on Providence! 

What do you think you have been to me ?” 

“A curse,” she whispered, nodding her 
head sagaciously in a way that struck him 
as horrible. “ Yes, I know I’ve been a curse 
to you. But I’ve never been your wife; and 
then men forget. You are so young. Just 
think how dreadful it would have been for 
me to marry you, and then for you to have 
found—out—this!” 

“ Yes, I think it would have been rather 
unpleasant,” he admitted. Great drops stood 
on his forehead and under his eyes, but his 
voice and manner were very quiet. 

“ You see, everything can be worse,” she 
said. “ When people used to say that, it 
sounded so meaningless to me, as if it were 
cant; but it is so true. If I had married you it 
would have been ten thousand times worse.” 

“ And yet you said you loved me!” he burst 
forth, in a sort of rage. 

“And I did! I did! You don’t think I 
didn’t?” she said, pausing in her re-begun 
search, with a species of dull surprise. “ I 
did love you.” 



THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 251 

“ Did you, indeed ?” said Dering, harshly. 
“ It seems there are some things women can 
get over, after all. I suppose a man must die 
and haunt them to be remembered.” 

“ But you do believe I loved you ? You do 
believe that ?” 

“ I did believe it,” he said, with rough 
emphasis. 

“ But don’t you believe it now ?” she said, 
anxiously. “ I don’t feel anything now, but 
[ know I loved you. Indeed, indeed, I’m not 
so bad as you think; and I must have loved 
you, to act as I did: it all proves that I did. 
I can’t help not doing it now; I can’t help 
not being sorry, or glad, or frightened, or 
anything, now. You know I wrote you once 
in a letter that I didn’t feel anything. But I 
know I loved you.” 

“ I believe you are crazy,” said Dering, in 
a strangled voice. 

“ I wish I thought so,” she said, plaintively; 
“ but I know I’m not. I’m just stunned now, 
because I have been on such a terrible strain 
for so long, but my mind is as clear—as cool. 
I see everything; I see just how it would all 
have been; and I see how you are obliged to 


252 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

hate me at first. I would if I were you. You 
can’t help it. I don’t feel angry with you 
because you hate me: it would be unnatural 
if you did not; and then it will keep it from 
hurting you so. I would a great deal rather 
have you hate me than hurt you.” 

“ Would you?” said Dering. 

“Yes, I would,—I would. You don’t 
believe it, but I would.” 

“ It is hard to believe some things,” was his 
reply. “ I think, if you will be good enough 
to lend me a trap, that I will drive to Char¬ 
lottesville.” 

“To-night?” she said, pausing again to 
look at him. 

“Yes, to-night. Perhaps you can under¬ 
stand a feeling that I have against sleeping 
another night in this house.” 

“ It’s because I’m in it,” she said, sadly. 
“ I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you in 
the least.” 

“ That is very good of you,” he re¬ 
marked, acridly. “ Can I hope your gen¬ 
erosity will extend to the loan I have just 
asked for ?” 

“ You are really going to-night ?” 


THE QUICK OR THE DEADt 253 

“ If you will kindly lend me a trap and 
horse, and some one to open gates.” 

“ You can order what you wish,” she said, 
slowly. 

“ Thanks,” he replied. “ I suppose I may 
shake your hand ?” 

She held it out to him silently. 

“ Good-by,” he said; then, after a pause, 
“ good-by, Barbara.” 

“ Good-by,” she answered, looking down at 
their clasped hands. 

“ Good-by,” he said, once more; once more 
she answered him, still keeping her eyes on 
their hands, which now fell apart silently. 
He went to the door, and passed out, only to 
re-enter stumblingly, to catch her to him, to 
bruise her face and throat with short, hard 
kisses. 

“ I love you!” he said, in a voice of terri¬ 
ble anguish. “ I am a coward: I love you 
in spite of everything! Oh, Barbara, Bar¬ 
bara, you will be so sorry for this to-morrow, 
when I am beyond your reach,—when you 
know that I have gone forever! For I won’t 
come back after this: I will never come back. 
Barbara, think of it all!—think of our beau- 
22 


254 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 

tiful hours together,—of my kisses,—of the 
way you have clung to me,—of the way you 
have kissed my hair, my eyes, my throat,— 
as I kiss yours now !” 

He almost hurt her in his desperate eager¬ 
ness, but he might as well have tried to rouse 
response in a corpse. She lay in his arms 
panting, but listless, and the eyes that she 
lifted to him were full of a certain timid plead¬ 
ing and dwelt upon him through great tears. 

“ I try to feel sorry, and I only feel sorry 
because I am not really sorry,” she said, 
tiredly. “ I know you are going, and that I 
loved you, and I try so hard to be sorry; but 
I can only think how nice it will be to go to 
bed and go to sleep. I am so tired! I don’t 
think I will ever cry again, except because I 
can’t cry. Oh, it all sounds so silly! but 
please try to understand.” 

“ Good-by,” he said, hoarsely, just touching 
her soft hair with strong but trembling fingers. 
“ Give me your lips this once.” 

She lifted her mouth, but his passionate 
kiss left her parted lips as piteously expres¬ 
sionless as ever. “ I can’t do it! I can’t feel 
anything! I try so hard!” 


THE QUICK OR THE DEAD? 255 

He knelt suddenly at her feet, and lifted 
her hands to his thick curls. 

“ Say, ‘ God be with you, Jock/ ” he whis¬ 
pered, stammering. 

She said it very sweetly, in a clear, earnest 
voice, as though anxious to please him : “ God 
be with you, Jock.” 

“ And with you,” he said, giving one heavy 
sob. 

He held her for a moment tightly about 
her knees, then went, closing the door after 
him with careful softness. 

As he left the room, she fell once more to 
looking for the lost ring, found it at last un¬ 
derneath the fender, and, blowing the ashes 
from it, slipped it upon her finger as Dering 
drove from the door. 


THE END. 























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